Oaks Blogs

So Rags to Riches you know about. If not by this stage, I know a bookmaker in New Orleans who’ll give you a little action on the carrier pigeon races out of Biloxi.

And you also might know that – alas – the mighty Magnificience, she of the 109 Beyer when they threw the wolves to her in a stakes race last out at Santa Anita, will not be Kentucky bound.

And that Mistical Plan – though her speed did not play well on the Polytrack at Keeneland Saturday – is eligible to do better on the loam over in Louisville.

And that Cash Included didn’t exactly do the ka-ching thing Friday in Arkansas.

And that (sit down now if you have a hard time dealing with big surprises) Todd Pletcher just may be sitting on the okie-doke filly for the first Friday in May with the gray, ground-gobbler named Octave.

But what you might not know is that Bob Baffert (remember him?) might have one ready to do some tiptoeing into Louisville with designs on a surprise party for her soph sisters.

Baffert has come up with a bay lassie named Tough Tiz’s Sis, who raced long enough for Illinois connections to break her maiden, then headed west to the White-Haired Wonder’s barn for a couple of his Tucson clients who are good buddies with the University of Arizona's Hall of Fame basketball coach Lute Olsen (and also happen to own a stakes-caliber colt named Midnight Lute who is eligible to turn up at Keeneland soon and run big.)

The “Tough” filly is by a mighty tough one himself, the two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow, thus allowing us all to understand why she started to do some real good when the distances started to get longer for her. In four two-turn races she has three tallies and a second, and those Beyer numbers keep climbing right along with her. Her latest foray was from Santa Anita to Sunland Park and she got the money there in a race that offered a $200K pot. Now, true enough, it is a long way from Sunland Park to Churchill Downs (even if you do take the express stagecoach), but stranger things have happened with horses Baffert has taken to the desert and then taken to the mountain top. You might remember a steed named Real Quiet, who scattered some scorpions prior to grabbing two of the three brass rings on the Triple Crown.

Our girl “Tough” hasn’t raced since March 18 and probably could use something in the way of a tightener prior to her May 4, Grade I leg-stretching. But with virtually nothing left on the calendar for 3-year-old fillies, Baffert either will have to get creative (an allowance race against older mares, if he could get one to fill) to get her a prep. Or, he might just try to train her up to it. Bullet Bob has given her a bullet half (:46.40 on March 31) and five-eighths in 1:00.60 just this (Monday) morning at Santa Anita), so he’s keeping his options open.

Is she good enough to really think about taking on the heavyweights in the Blue Grass? Well, we can’t be sure, can we? Which is why it’s for sure she just might try.