A.P. ADVENTURE - "All's good," was the report out of Barn 39 where the Kentucky Oaks filly A.P. Adventure has been hanging her proverbial hat since shipping in from California earlier this month.

Aimee Dollase, the daughter of - and assistant trainer to - the filly's conditioner, Wallace Dollase, gave the report after her 3-year-old charge's morning exercise following the 8 a.m. renovation break. The daughter of A.P. Indy traveled a mile and one-eighth at a gallop under exercise rider Rhett Fincher.

A.P. Adventure has drawn Post 9 in the 12-horse field for the $500,000 Oaks on Friday. The bay miss will be handled by Hall of Fame rider Mike Smith in the Grade I test at nine furlongs.

"She'll just gallop up to the race from here," Aimee Dollase said. "We just want to keep our fingers crossed and keep her going forward."

ASHADO - The second favorite in Friday's Kentucky Oaks at 4-1, the Saint Ballado filly Ashado went about her business early Wednesday, galloping a mile and one half under Michelle Nihei shortly after the track opened at 5:15 a.m.

Trainer Todd Pletcher had a one-word answer when asked how the exercise went: "Beautifully."

Pletcher will give rider John Velazquez a leg up on Ashado Friday as they take on 11 rivals in the $500,000, Grade I headliner. The facile filly has five wins, two seconds and one third to her credit after eight races. All but one of those have been in graded stakes company. Her earnings now amount to $890,800, helping her conditioner to his current No. 2 spot among the nation's winningest trainers this year with more than $4.5 million in purses.

HALFBRIDLED - Unbridled's best daughter - Halfbridled - flashed her natural speed Wednesday morning in her final bit of exercise prior to her date in Friday's Grade I Kentucky Oaks.

The 2003 juvenile filly champion went trackside under exercise rider Paul Nilluang at approximately 7 a.m., backtracked to the seven-eighths pole, then turned and jogged to the three-furlong marker where she threw it into high gear as the sun shone on the start of a crisp and clear Kentucky day. Her trainer, Richard Mandella, had taken up a post in the Churchill Downs clubhouse and had a "front row" view of his prize filly's drill.

The tall and racy dark bay or brown miss didn't dawdle through her work, covering the three panels in a nifty :34.60, second best of 18 moves at the distance on the fast Churchill strip. She was given an "out" time of :48.

The veteran Nilluang was impressed with Halfbridled's high stepping.

"I just let her run from the sixteenth pole," he noted. "Oh, boy! She was really strong. I had a hard time pulling her up."

Mandella was equally impressed with her move, as he noted to media representatives upon his return to Barn 41.

"We livened her up a bit," the trainer said. "She went really good. We wanted to get her mind on that (running)."

Mandella guided Halfbridled through a championship campaign last year that saw her win four races in four starts, including the Del Mar Debutante and the Oak Leaf Stakes, climaxed by an impressive tally in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies race at Santa Anita.

But this year the trainer has seen his charge beaten twice as the odds-on favorite in stakes in California and Kentucky, and also has had her training regimen upset by illness.

What, someone wondered, was going on with Halfbridled?

"I'm doing OK with her," Mandella offered, "and she's coming up to this race very well. But to be honest, she's a different filly this year. It's hormones. She's just become more sensitive. Last year she was like a tomboy; nothing really mattered to her or bothered her. But this year she's become more feminine. Some little thing will happen (at the barn) and you can see her swoon.

"When I had her over at Keeneland (earlier this month for her start in the Beaumont Stakes), she was a mess. She was in season and she was all over the place. But she's settled down since we've come over to Churchill. She's doing real well. She is obviously a very talented filly. There is no taking that away from her. But I'm just not the same coming into this one with her as I was coming into the Breeders' Cup last year. Everything fell into place then and bing-bang we were a winner. This time we'll just have to see."

Despite his worries and woes with Halfbridled this year, Mandella said he had no doubts about what his feelings were about her coming into the $500,000 Oaks.

"I wouldn't trade mine for any of the others," he said.

HOLLYWOOD STORY - George Krikorian's Hollywood Story was on the track for a mile and a half gallop Wednesday morning with exercise rider Michelle Jensen in the boot.

Trainer John Shirreffs was on the scene after arriving from his Hollywood Park headquarters Tuesday night.

"She's done all her work," the trainer said. "She'll have a light gallop on Thursday, and then just walk on race day."

Hollywood Story broke her maiden in the Hollywood Starlet in December, after running second to Halfbridled in the Del Mar Debutante, and fourth behind that filly in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

"Just your typical Grade 1 maiden race," Shirreffs said with a smile of his filly's first - and so far only - career victory. In her most recent start, the Santa Anita Oaks, Hollywood Story finished fourth behind three of her Kentucky Oaks rivals - Silent Sighs, Halfbridled, and A.P. Adventure.

"She didn't have a good trip that day," Shirreffs said. "She was carried wide on the turn, and the first two finishers came up the rail. She should have been no worse than third in that race."

Victor Espinoza, who became the filly's regular rider this year, has the mount again. The filly drew Post 2 in the field of 12. George Krikorian, who owns a string of movie theaters in California, said he named the filly Hollywood Story because of her dam's name.

"Her dam's name is Wife for Life," Krikorian said, "and that sounded like a good Hollywood story to me."

HOUSE OF FORTUNE - Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally sent Arnold Zetcher's House of Fortune to the track after the renovation break Wednesday to gallop a mile and one-half under exercise rider Mike Johnson.

House of Fortune, impressive winner of the Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park, also will be schooled in the Churchill Downs paddock this afternoon with horses entered in the second race.

McAnally also said that he and wife Debbie became grandparents for the fifth time Tuesday night when their daughter, Laura, gave birth to a girl, named Faith. Laura and her husband also have a three-year-old son, Christian.

ISLAND SAND - Trainer Larry Jones jogged Island Sand a half mile and then galloped her a mile and an eighth in preparation for the Kentucky Oaks on Friday.

"We're winding up the rubber band...tightening the springs," he said following the exercise. "If things were going any better, I couldn't stand it."

Island Sand drew post position 3 for the Oaks. "We're pleased," said Jones. "It beats where we were in our last race (post 11 in the Fantasy). She'll save some ground - we'll be able to do it from there. There's speed on the outside of her, which might get us squeezed back a little bit, but they'll shake themselves out the first eighth of a mile."

Interestingly, the Kentucky Oaks will be only the second race for the trainer-owner combination of Jones and Jim Osborne (B.A. Man Inc.). Osborne purchased Island Sand privately just prior to her victory in the Busanda Stakes at Aqueduct, where she raced for trainer Anthony Dutrow. Following that race, Osborne sent the filly to Jones, a trainer he chose because of a mutual friend, Richard Maynard, who is the breeder of Island Sand.

Osborne was in a way "aware" of the filly before she was even born, as he had run a hypothetical mating of her sire and dam using a computer breeding program. He has followed her whereabouts since.

"I knew the filly was sold at auction as a yearling. I saw she was running December last year and I knew she was doing well. Then in January, I saw on a website run by a commercial group of breeders that she was for sale. I talked to Dick Maynard about her and the next thing you know, I owned her," said Osborne.

He did not purchase Island Sand directly off the Internet, but rather negotiated a deal privately with her owner at the time, bloodstock agent Mike Ryan.

LAST SONG - Buckram Oak Farm's filly galloped a mile and an eighth around the oval Wednesday morning as she gets ready to take on a topnotch field in the Kentucky Oaks.

"This is a very good group of fillies," trainer Carl Nafzger said. "A lot will depend on the way the race unfolds."

Last Song won the Bonnie Miss Stakes in Florida, and last out was third behind Madcap Escapade and Ashado in the Ashland Stakes. The Oaks is a mile and an eighth, same distance as the Bonnie Miss.

"She likes to go a little farther than most," Nafzger said. "But what happens in the race is going to be up to the rider."

Edgar Prado, who was aboard in the Bonnie Miss, has the call again in the Oaks as they leave from Post 10 in the field of 12.

"The rider has to ride the race the way it unfolds. He has to see what's happening and react to that," the trainer said. "If we're trying to teach a horse something in a race, I'll give the jockey specific instructions. But in the big races, it's all up to them."

MADCAP ESCAPADE - The unbeaten filly Madcap Escapade was out for some easy exercise Wednesday morning. Bruce Lunsford's miss did her heavy lifting last Friday when she worked a hole in the wind with five furlongs in :58 flat over a sloppy track.

Trainer Frank Brothers said everything was coming along as planned for the Hennessy filly, who made the Ashland Stakes last out her fourth career victory. Jerry Bailey, who was aboard in the filly's first stakes win - the Forward Gal Stakes on March 13 - has the call Friday as Madcap Escapade goes from Post 6 in the field of 12 talented fillies.

SILENT SIGHS - With trainer Julio Canani having arrived on the scene from California, Mr. and Mrs. Marty Wygod's Silent Sighs, winner of the Santa Anita Oaks, galloped a mile and one-half today under exercise pilot Mikki Fincher.

Silent Sighs, a California-bred daughter of Benchmark, hasn't raced since March 13 when she won the Santa Anita Oaks by 1 ½ lengths over champion Halfbridled. But for a half-length loss to House of Fortune in the California Cup Juvenile Filly Stakes last November, the filly would be undefeated in five starts.

Canani said Silent Sighs worked well before leaving California, working five furlongs in "a minute and change" last Friday and seven furlongs in 1:23 a week before that. David Flores has been aboard Silent Sighs in every race and will ride again Friday.

STELLAR JAYNE - Stellar Jayne again took the track at Churchill Downs for an early morning gallop on Wednesday. The filly that is a closer drew the outside post of 12 for the Kentucky Oaks.

"The race is a mile and an eighth and she doesn't have any speed, so this (the post position) may be a blessing," Lukas said. "We may be better served with her being on the outside. There's no short run into the first turn, so I think we're OK."

VICTORY U.S.A./CLASS ABOVE - Trainer Bob Baffert's two entrants in Friday's Kentucky Oaks - Thomas Van Meter II's Victory U.S.A. and Padua Stables' Class Above - were on the track this morning to exercise. Class Above, who breezed Monday and walked Tuesday, jogged, while Victory U.S.A. galloped a mile and one-half.

Class Above, winner of the Bourbonette Stakes at Turfway Park, will be ridden by Corey Nakatani, while Pat Day has the call on Victory U.S.A., victress in the Beaumont Stakes at Keeneland. Baffert won his lone Kentucky Oaks in 1999 with Mike Pegram's Silverbulletday.

« Back To Oaks Updates