KENTUCKY OAKS

(GRADE 1)

JOHN Servis, Chuck Zacney and every friend they ever had walked, danced and shimmied from the turf course, across the dirt track and into the tunnel under the twin spires at Churchill Downs.

Some went to the director’s room to toast the winner of the Kentucky Oaks, others went to the press conference to talk about the winner of the Kentucky Oaks. Either way, the party had just got started.

One, solitary figure peeled from the entourage, made a left and began to make the long, slow walk back to the barn at Churchill Downs. In a shiny, almost silver suit and carrying a bucket, a leather shank and some dirty equipment, Tyler Servis smiled a long, deep smile.

“I’ve got to go check on her,” trainer’s son and assistant trainer said. “She just made us a lot of money, got to keep her precious.”

Servis walked in the middle of the dirt track, under the finish line, past the television booths on the clubhouse turn and to the gap on the backstretch as the sun faded on a brilliant, raucous pre-Derby day. “She’s got a lot of heart that filly,” Servis said. “It shows to everyone that doubted her, that she couldn’t get a mile and an eighth, she did it, she was caught wide and she got over a mile and an eighth today and proved everybody wrong.”

Owned by Zacney’s Cash Is King Stable, trained by Tyler’s dad, John, and ridden by Javier Castellano, Cathryn Sophia silenced all doubters, slamming a two and three-quarter length win on Land Over Sea and Lewis Bay in the Grade 1 Longines Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 6th.

Coming off her first career defeat, a third-place finish in the Ashland at Keeneland while stretching to a mile and a sixteenth for the first time, the Maryland-bred daughter of Street Boss needed to prove she could go nine furlongs. She proved it, catapulting the Servis family to the mainstage for the first time since Smarty Jones took the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2004.

HARD WORK

Tyler Servis was 13 when that ride ended in tears at Belmont Park “It means a lot more to me now,” Tyler Servis said. “I had a lot more to do with it being his assistant and just seeing hard work really does truly pay off. It’s a good thing for the business to see little people from Philadelphia Park win big races.”

A $30,000 yearling purchase, Cathryn Sophia has been brilliant from the first day, winning her debut by 12 and three-quarter lengths at Parx (formerly Philadelphia Park) in October.

“John deserves all the credit. He was very, very patient with this filly,” Zacney said. “When we were going to the winner’s circle after her first race, John said ‘whatever you do don’t sell the filly.’

“He’s been right since day one. Very, very happy with everything. To have a Grade 1 winner, to be honest I was expecting it in the Ashland, so we were disappointed not to get that Grade 1. So we had to come back with 14 horses to get a Grade 1 but we got it.”