Oaks News

Photo By: Reed Palmer

DALLAS STEWART, trainer of LEMONS FOREVER (WINNER) --
"This is a great feeling, great to be the trainer and the co-owner. Mark gave her a great ride. She lapped the whole field to come from last to win a big, big race.

"I'm really enjoying this. It's a once in a lifetime thing. I can't wait to get back to the barn and give her a kiss and a peppermint.

"You know, to pick her out at the sale and buy a piece of her, and have the owners stick with you, this is everything you could ask for. This is what horse racing is all about.

"I was crying at the eighth pole."

"This is big time.

"Going back to the last race, the filly showed a lot of grit and determination. We were talking about the Ashland or the Fantasy, but I told the family she might be an Oaks filly. We were lucky to get in and we were lucky to draw the 14.

"She had a great trip. Mark rode her extremely well. He's a great rider - he won the Woolf award this year. She was flat rolling on the turn. I felt like we could win it from there if she could maintain her drive.

"She showed us she wanted it. We put a good work in her."

MARK GUIDRY, jockey aboard LEMONS FOREVER (WINNER) --
"She broke a little slowly, maybe it was because of the crowd. I tucked in as much as I could going into the first turn. On the backside, I kind of let her ease to the leaders on her own, but we got hung wide on the second turn and every time I found a seam or something, it closed up. I had horse and I did not want to get her stopped at all and she showed what I thought she could. She worked tremendously on this racetrack and Dallas (trainer Dallas Stewart) did a great job."

ROBBY ALBARADO, jockey aboard ERMINE (2nd) --
"She ran great, but give credit to the winner. She is a nice filly. This was the best field of fillies for this race since maybe back to Silverbulletday (in 1999)."

Did he think he was going to win when he made the lead?

"Absolutely. When she made the lead, she was ready to move. She did see the horse on the outside (Lemons Forever) and she just gutted it out for the last eighth."

RONNY WERNER, trainer of ERMINE (2nd) --
"It was a tough race. I have no complaints. She's a lady and a lady on the track. She ran her guts out, so I have no reason to complain."

GARRETT GOMEZ, jockey aboard WAIT A WHILE (3rd) --
"She loaded OK and broke good and I was in a decent spot. I wanted to move with her earlier, but I knew I had to wait. Todd (trainer Todd Pletcher) had me all filled in on her. She just doesn't have the burst. She's got that one-pace thing going. So it opened up on the rail and I got her to go through there. If I'd have had my way, I'd rather have gone outside. Horses generally like it better outside and especially fillies. But I had her in her best spot to do some good and I tried to get her to go on. She gave me her best, but it wasn't good enough to make the front and go on with it."

TODD PLETCHER, trainer of WAIT A WHILE (3rd) --
"We thought she ran a big race. On the turn she tried to make a move up the rail, but got in a little trouble. She was bothered a bit (by the disqualified third-place finisher Bushfire), but it's hard to tell if it cost her a placing."

EDGAR PRADO, jockey aboard WONDER LADY ANNE L (4th) --
"She had a good trip. We broke OK and she settled in, made a nice move around the turn, but got eaten up at the end. She only got beat a few lengths."

RICHARD DUTROW, trainer of WONDER LADY ANNE L (4th) and LAST ROMANCE (7th) --
"I'm not disappointed. I'm disappointed that we didn't win, but I'm not disappointed in my horses."

Did your riders report having difficult trips?

"I didn't talk with them, but I watched the race and I didn't see either of them have any kind of problems."

How are your fillies?

"They seem to be OK."

COREY NAKATANI, jockey aboard RED CHERRIES SPIN (5th) --
"She ran awesome. If she didn't get bothered, she might have held her position, but she was knocked off stride in the stretch. That compromised her from getting a better placing. Turning for home I thought we were going to win it…she was digging and fighting. She's gonna do what they (owner and trainer) ask her to do."

BERNARD FLINT, trainer of RED CHERRIES SPIN (5th) --
"She almost went down when that horse (Bushfire) cut over on her and took a lane away from her in the stretch. It cost her a lot, because you can't check that hard at the sixteenth pole and start running again. It's impossible. She was running a good race to that point."

CORNELIO VELASQUEZ, jockey aboard BUSHFIRE (DQ'd from third, placed 6th) --
"She ran very well, it just didn't work out well."

EDDIE KENNEALLY, trainer of BUSHFIRE (DQ'd from third, placed 6th) --
"He's (Cornelio Velasquez) blaming Nakatani, but it looked like she was at fault most of the way. I don't know why she would drift in. I need to watch the replay again and see."

What did you think of her performance?

"She ran really well. She was very wide on the first turn. She ran extremely well. I'm very happy with how she ran."

What's next?

"No real plans right now. We're going to give her a little break and just take it easy for a little while."

RAFAEL BEJARANO, jockey aboard LAST ROMANCE (7th) --
"I put her right behind the speed and into a good position. Was running good after a half mile. We tried to close."

PATRICK HUSBANDS, jockey aboard TOP NOTCH LADY (8th) --
"I had a bad trip. She got wiped out on the first turn. She came back and made a nice move and tried hard the whole way. She is a nice filly."

MARK CASSE, trainer of TOP NOTCH LADY (8th) --
"Patrick said she got in a lot of trouble on the first turn. He had to check her. He said she started to make up ground on the backstretch and she got clobbered again. She tried hard. She beat the filly who won it at Turfway."

KENT DESORMEAUX, jockey aboard QUIET KIM (9th) --
"This is the roughest race I ever rode in at Churchill Downs. I had so much horse at the half-mile pole and the horse in front of me (Miss Norman) stopped and I tried to get around her and got slammed by Balance. It wasn't so much Balance's fault. The horse on the lead on the fence (Miss Norman), in five jumps she went from five lengths in front of me and I had nowhere to go. I was lucky I didn't fall."

ROBERT HESS, trainer of QUIET KIM (9th) --
"I think the video replay shows that he was making a huge move going to the 3/8ths pole when she ran into the back heels of the #1 horse. She lost all her momentum and paid the price."

PATRICK VALENZUELA, jockey aboard ITTY BITTY PRETTY (10th) --
"My trip wasn't too bad. I got shuffled back on the first turn and was farther back than I wanted to be. But the pace was lively and I felt OK about it. When we went to the far turn she just didn't have it. There wasn't anything there. She was just out of gas."

DOUG O'NEILL, trainer of ITTY BITTY PRETTY (10th) --
"I'll have to see the replay, but it sure looks like the first turn wasn't kind to us. She's a grinder and not a big filly, so she doesn't have a burst of speed to get back into the race."

VICTOR ESPINOZA, jockey aboard BALANCE (Beaten favorite, finished 11th) --
"I had a good trip and I was able to save ground down on the inside. But she just wasn't in the race today. She never showed up. She just wasn't there today."

DAVID HOFMANS, trainer of BALANCE (Beaten favorite, finished 11th) --
"I guess he had a real rough trip going down the backside. He couldn't get position and he just kept getting shut off. He said she felt great and just didn't have enough to catch anybody.

PABLO MORALES, jockey aboard MISS NORMAN (12th) --
"My horse broke good and we set the pace. She doesn't like to be bothered, so when she got an easy lead I let her do her thing. In the end we tried to pick things up, but they passed us very easily."

KARIN LONG, trainer of MISS NORMAN (12th) --
"She gave everything she had. We can't ask for more."

ALEX SOLIS, jockey aboard DIPLOMAT LADY (13th) --
"She didn't really like the track. She didn't care for it at all."

JULIEN LEPAROUX, jockey aboard EX CAELIS (14th) --
"She flipped in the gate and then when the gates opened, she wasn't ready. She never got in the race."

D. WAYNE LUKAS, trainer of EX CAELIS (14th) --
"I was very disappointed. She's trained really well. I knew that there could be a gray area as far as the conditioning was concerned, but I really thought that she'd run huge. I even touted her a little bit. I felt like she was coming up to a good one. She didn't; she ran her worst one.

"There is always an explanation. Sometimes it's not right there in front of you, but I'm sure we'll look into it. "I'm happy for Dallas. When my guys win like that, it's almost like I won."

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