Capuano aims for repeat Obeah Stakes win with Atlantis Queen

Gary Capuano spent Delaware Park’s June stakes day with a familiar target in mind: the Obeah Stakes, the filly-and-mare route that had already delivered him a winner with Malibu Beauty a year earlier. The repeat bid centered on Atlantis Queen, a 4-year-old daughter of Mitole who was entered in the $150,000 race at 1 1/16 miles on dirt and listed at 6/1 before the field went to post.

That setup gave the Obeah its clearest storyline. Capuano was not trying to force a horse into a spot she could not handle. Atlantis Queen had already shown she belonged in stakes company, winning the $100,000 Nellie Morse Stakes at Laurel Park on Feb. 14 before finishing third in the Heavenly Cause Stakes there on April 4. Her record, 3 wins, 4 seconds and 1 third from 17 starts, with earnings of $168,755, suggested a mare with a solid foundation and enough versatility to handle a two-turn stakes at Delaware. She also owned a win over the Delaware strip and had gone 2-2-0 in five career two-turn starts.

Capuano’s confidence was part of the appeal. He said Atlantis Queen was training well and getting better with age, the kind of comment that matters in a division where timing and placement often decide whether a mare turns into a summer player or just another starter in the program. He had three stakes runners on Delaware Park’s June 13 card, with Big Cuddle in the Delaware Derby, Atlantis Queen in the Obeah and Haileysfirstnotion in the Alapocas Run, a clear sign that the barn had targeted the day as a key landing spot.

The race itself carried the kind of shape that makes the Obeah so useful for this division. Eight fillies and mares entered, and a 1 1/16-mile dirt test at Delaware usually rewards position, pace and a clean trip more than brute force. The Obeah also carries history: it is named for Obeah, the filly who won the Delaware Handicap in 1969 and 1970, and it has long been one of the track’s mid-June markers for older females looking to build momentum.

But the repeat formula never got its final run. Atlantis Queen was scratched before the Obeah was run, and Chasten won the race in 1:43.83 on a fast track. Capuano’s 2025 winner, Malibu Beauty, had beaten her rivals by three lengths and paid $22, showing how quickly the same race can turn from a trainer’s opportunity into a changing of the guard. At Delaware Park, the Obeah again proved to be less about a single horse than about whether the right mare arrives at the right moment.