Oaks Blogs

With her third straight tally – this time in the Grade I Santa Anita Oaks on Sunday – Rags to Riches now has everyone’s attention on the Kentucky Oaks trail. If she’s not your favorite for the race right now, you’ve got hopes that far exceed expectations, or a pipeline to the Big Guy up above the stars.

So impressively has the lovely chestnut daughter of A.P. Indy gone about her business at Santa Anita this winter (even when she was green, as in her outer-rail romp in the Las Virgenes, she was good), that there is now talk of her taking on the boys – and perhaps even being considered for the Kentucky Derby.

All things are possible out on the racetrack and, as we know, Winning Colors was not an illusion. But Derby talk…….hmmmm. Me thinks too much too soon.

Still, though “Rags” doesn’t come with the Amazonian proportions that Winning Colors had, a dabble with the guys might not be a bad thing.

Todd Pletcher left a door open in that regard when he noted that her S.A. Oaks tally wasn’t too taxing (Gomez only showed her the whip at the head of the lane, then scrubbed on her to the wire) and that maybe another go prior to Oaks/Derby weekend could be in the cards.

Some folks took that to mean she might be given a try in the Santa Anita Derby on April 7, but the educated guess here says that will never fly. “Rags” is owned by the partnership of Derrick Smith and Michael Tabor, the same connection that has bragging rights for Ravel, the stakes-winning colt who will use the Santa Anita Derby as his final Kentucky Derby prep.

But how about a race like the Blue Grass on April 14? If she’s to try the boys, that might be the spot. Tabor and Smith are big fans of synthetic surfaces – both Ravel and “Rags” train on it exclusively at Hollywood Park – and the Polytrack surface at Keeneland might suit their “let’s take a shot” idea with the filly best of all.

And hey, if she finds those great, big boys a little to rough and nasty (and she surely might), there’s always the drop-back position to the $500,000, Grade I Oaks and merely being hailed as the best 3-year-old filly in the land.