Practical Joke’s Joker Boy Wins I’m Smokin Stakes

Practical Joke registered a second stakes winner – and second winner of the day – on Saturday when Joker Boy (2c Practical Joke x Bandora, by Dixieland Band) stayed undefeated in the I’m Smokin Stakes at Del Mar.

Joker Boy was engaged in a duel for the lead almost out of the gate in the six furlong dirt race as he took command from the word ‘go’. The Brian Koriner trainee shrugged off the first challenger as they entered the turn then had to fight with two others to keep his lead as they raced toward the stretch.

By the time they hit the final stages of the race, he was done with the others trying to share his lead and pulled away under Edwin Maldonado. He was an easy 3 ½ length winner with only stakes winning Rock N Rye within seven lengths of him at the end.

“I told Brian that we were going to be the real deal today,” said Maldonado. “This horse is special. When I first got on him I didn’t think he was a 2-year-old. He acted like an old horse. I took a hold of him the other day, today I just let him run out of there. He can run on, this horse. I have no doubt about that. He’s the real deal.”

Bred by Premier Thoroughbreds, two-time winner Joker Boy is owned by Rusty Brown, Alan Klein and Phillip Lebherz.

One of six winners from six to race out of stakes-placed Bandora, Joker Boy is a half-brother to fellow Del Mar stakes winner Continental Divide. They hail from the family of Grade I winner Love Theway You are, Grade II winner Tower Of Texas, and Footstepsinthesand’s stakes winner Song of My Heart.

Bandora returned to Practical Joke this year.

Now the sire of two stakes winners, Practical Joke has two more stakes runners this weekend – Girl With a Dream in the Grade I Spinaway Stakes and his Grade III winner Wit in the Grade I Hopeful Stakes.