Delaunay an overwhelming favorite in Iowa Sprint

Crack sprinter Delaunay will go for his seventh consecutive stakes victory

Friday night at Prairie Meadows in the $125,000

Iowa Sprint

Handicap over six furlongs. A prohibitive favorite at 3-5 on the morning

line, Delaunay will tote only 122 pounds against four rivals with Rosie

Napravnik named to ride the six-year-old.

Prairie Meadows is located in suburban Des Moines, the hometown of owner

Maggi Moss, who claimed the Smoke Glacken gelding for $40,000 13 months ago.

Delaunay has since won seven of eight starts for Moss and trainer Tom Amoss

while developing into one of the nation's premier sprinters. He's won all three

starts this term by an average of at least four lengths, and captured his first

graded stakes on Kentucky Derby Day when taking the Grade 2 Churchill Downs by

four lengths in the slop.

It's hard to make a case for any of the others if Delaunay runs true to form

although Gentlemen's Bet, another Churchill Downs invader, is one of the more

plausible alternatives. The Ron Moquett trainee has won four of five starts,

including a third-level allowance at Churchill by 5 3/4 lengths most recently.

His only loss came in his lone prior stakes appearance in the Count Fleet Sprint

Handicap at Oaklawn, where he finished third.