Oaks Blogs

Some little chestnuts (sounds better than acorns) en route to that big Oak(s):

• So it appears the big three of Kentucky Derbydom in recent decades --- we’re talking D. Wayne Lukas, Bob Baffert and Nick Zito – didn’t get close to having a Derby horse this year and will, apparently, just sneak in the door with a runner for the Oaks. Of the top 14 to qualify for the Oaks based on graded stakes earnings, Zito has one (Silver Knockers) with all of $30,000 in graded earnings, Lukas shows one (Grace Happens) with $12,000 and Baffert may get to run one (Tough Tiz’s Sis) who hasn’t made a graded penny. It’s a different kind of trifecta for these guys.
• I love that Oaks – Derby double bet (first instituted in 1996). It is so sweet to tab that Oaks winner and have several Derby horses, including a good longshot or two, covered for the following day. I’m not sure yet, and probably won’t be until Oaks Friday, which way I’ll want to go on it this year, but I’ve got a feeling I’m going to try to beat the likely favorite -- Rags to Riches. And right now I’m leaning toward the other Todd  Pletcher filly, the gray Octave. She’s not going to be any great price (right now I see her as a solid second choice), but her number linked up with any of a half-dozen possible Derby contenders could make for some sweet mutual/mutuel music.
• It’s not unusual for out-of-town trainers to ship their horses ahead to a fellow trainer for care and keeping prior to a race. It is also not unusual for those shipping trainers to say a little prayer that their horses get taken care of the way they hope they will. But sometimes a trainer can rest easy in that department. As in the case of Oaks candidate Cash Included, who was shipped by Craig Dollase in California to his dad, Wally, in Kentucky. Pop’s got your back, Craig.
• For the second time, trainer Todd Pletcher worked likely Oaks favorite Rags to Riches with the colt Circular Quay, who has serious designs on the Kentucky Derby. Their drill yesterday was in tandem at Keeneland in 1:00.20. That’s a dynamic and amazing twosome for sure and Pletcher – a man who learned a fair chunk of his trade working for D. Wayne Lukas (who was asexual in his what-race-do-I-run-this-horse-in thinking) – obviously believes the team drills will benefit both animals. Perhaps the only more notable work pairing of this spring is the one that has seen Nobiz Like Shobiz hook up for some exercise with Kentucky Derby hero Funny Cide.
• Trainer Doug O’Neill will give one of my favorite stealth riders – David Flores – a leg up on Mistical Plan in the Oaks, then the next day he’ll boost him aboard Liquidity in the Derby. No matter what else I do, I will play this Oaks – Derby double. And if I hit it – no matter my luck otherwise -- I will not leave Kentucky a loser.
• Bob Baffert, who has been known to put the wood to them in the mornings, worked his Oaks hopeful Tough Tiz’s Sis in 1:10.60 at Santa Anita last Tuesday. If she in fact does run in the Oaks, the guess would be she won’t have to run that fast for the first six in the nine-panel testing.
• Churchill’s biggest Oaks crowd was in 2005 when 111,243 rubbed elbows. With all the buzz around this year’s wide-open, many-angled, showdown-of-showdowns Derby, we just might see a new on-the-coattails high Friday head-count.
• Double Kentucky Oaks winner Jerry Hollendorfer ran 1-2-3 with a trio of fillies in the Bay Meadows Breeders’ Cup Oaks. For about 30 seconds he pondered the Kentucky Oaks for his three missies. Then he did the thing that has made him one of the most successful trainers in the world – he decided instead to consider them for a race where they really belong, the Golden Poppy at the Bay Area track next month.
• Of those trainers likely to run horses in this year’s Oaks, only Lukas (4), Zito (1), Baffert (1) and Pletcher (1) have won the race before.
• It appears Pletcher could run three in the $500,000 Oaks. But it also appears he won’t run the Kentucky-bred daughter of Include he trains for Glencrest Farm named Panty Raid, thus ruining what would have been every frat boy’s favorite Friday hunch bet.