John Asher: 2008 Kentucky Oaks Blog

If you have a talented 3-year-old in the barn, your thoughts in the first week of January cannot help to avoid a flirtation with dreams of the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.

But if that talented 3-year-old is a filly, chances are those thoughts still include a trip to Louisville on the first weekend in May. The focus for 3-year-old fillies at this time of year is clearly on the $500,000-added Kentucky Oaks, the Grade I race for 3-year-old fillies that will be run on the eve of the Derby, Friday, May 3.

The 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-old fillies is as old as the Kentucky Derby, as both got their start in May, 1875 in the first racing meet at the Louisville track known then as the Louisville Jockey Club. But the last 25 years or so have seen the stature and prestige of the Oaks soar and the race is now clearly the top prize for 3-year-old fillies in American racing.

For evidence, look back to the 2007 renewal that saw Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith’s wondrous Rags to Riches dominate a deep and talented field in the 133rd running of the Oaks. Trainer Todd Pletcher and his owners had flirted with the notion of a Kentucky Derby fun for the talented daughter of A.P. Indy, but kept her with members of her gender in a race that both cemented the status of Rags to Riches as a rising superstar and continued the growth in quality of the Oaks.

After all, just five weeks later Rags to Riches would win a duel with Preakness winner Curlin, who would conclude a “Horse of the Year” campaign with a romp in the Breeders’ Cup Classic powered by Dodge in the Monmouth Park slop, to become the first filly in a century to win the final jewel of racing’s Triple Crown, the 1 ½-mile Belmont Stakes.

It would be difficult to imagine that another Rags to Riches is out there waiting to run in this year’s Oaks, but remember that – at this time a year ago – Pletcher’s filly had one race to her credit: a fourth-place finish in a maiden race the previous June at Churchill Downs. To say that Rags to Riches was in the Oaks picture at this time 12 months ago would have been a significant stretch.

So, we start the year with some talented fillies that enjoyed strong 2-year-old campaigns. That group includes likely champion Indian Blessing, the romping winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile fillies for trainer Bob Baffert; Country Star, a daughter of Empire Maker, who has the look of a superstar in the breeding shed and is a two-time Grade I winner on synthetic tracks for trainer Bobby Frankel; and Pure Clan, an unbeaten filly with a grass pedigree and a pair of stakes wins over the dirt at Churchill Downs for veteran trainer Bob Holthus..

A filly that would intrigue me at a price at this point would be Izarra. I can’t wait to see what Ron McAnally’s trainee does when she eventually gets to the dirt.

But those are just some names at the top of the crop. We can only imagine what talent is lurking out there among the fillies that we have not seen.

The Kentucky Oaks picture will change over the coming weeks and stars will rise and fall. But there will be a successor to Rags to Riches adorned with a garland of lilies at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby eve, and much fun awaits as we try to pinpoint in this and other Kentucky Oaks blogs just who that filly will be.

I look forward to trading opinions on the run-up to Kentucky Oaks 134.