Longines Kentucky Oaks
(Grade 1)
BATTING leadoff, Good Cheer.
Godolphin’s dominant weekend began in the Longines Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs when Good Cheer remained undefeated with a facile score in the Grade 1 three-year-old filly stakes contest last Friday .
Trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Luis Saez, the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro stood her ground between horses, established a comfortable spot in the middle of the big field, gradually worked her way outside, swung five wide turning for home and rolled to a solo romp.
The homebred filly drew off to win by two and a quarter lengths over longshots Drexel Hill and Bless The Broken, going nine furlongs over the fast, sealed racetrack in 1m 50.15secs.
“The word I just keep going back to is her level of class. She’s just incredibly easy to deal with. She’s easy to train. She listens to her rider. She’s easy to be around. Very, very sound filly. We’ve never had to back off of her,” Cox said.
“She just marched forward since we’ve had her and works well every week. She’s never had a workout where we thought she didn’t act like she’s doing as well as she was. She just continues to bring it every week in her workouts and in her races, and she’s just so consistent.”
Good Cheer won her debut at Indiana Downs in August, came back to win an allowance race by 17 lengths at Churchill Downs and took the Rags to Riches at Churchill. She skipped the Breeders’ Cup, leaving that to stablemate Immersive, and tacked on the Grade 2 Golden Rod, again at Churchill, to finish her juvenile season.
The bay filly returned to win the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra and the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks this season. She made her Grade 1 debut in the Kentucky Oaks.
Oaks filly
“We thought the further the better,” Cox said. “Last fall (we) started thinking we had Immersive and she was obviously a very good champion in her own right. But we thought she was our Kentucky Oaks filly, and thought this could be our Alabama filly.”
Immersive went four-for-four in her juvenile season but needed rest (she had her first breeze May 2nd).
And, yes, that’s how deep the Godolphin arsenal runs. They won the Kentucky Oaks with the backup.
“This filly picked up and just every race continued to improve. Obviously, she loves Churchill,” Cox said. “She’ll run on anything. The further, the better. Very proud of her. I’m not certain what her ceiling is. I don’t know if there is one.”
The Kentucky Oaks, the 2000 Guineas, the Kentucky Derby and the 1000 Guineas. A career in a weekend. And if you’re wondering, you can put Good Cheer up there with Rickey Henderson, Pete Rose, Tim Raines as the best leadoff hitters in history.
As for Godolphin, Michael Banahan might have said it best.
“Do we expect to win these type of races? No, you don’t. You just expect to have some nice horses that you can give them the opportunity, give them to great trainers like we have,” he said after winning the Derby.
“Are we going to try again next year? Sure, we’re going to try again next year, and the year after. Will we get here? Who knows. But we’ll be certainly trying, that’s for sure.”
Look out.
Rest of the card
THE big shock of the Derby weekend was the defeat in the Grade 1 Fasig-Tipton La Troienne Stakes of the 2024 Horse of the Year, Thorpedo Anna.
The four-year-old had won her two outings this season in fine style but on the muddy track, she met early interference, entering the first turn. Although she was back on an even keel through the middle of the race, when asked for her effort off the final bend, she had nothing to offer and she dropped back to last.
She was coming back from her Oaklawn win just 20 days previously and trainer Kenny McPeek offered that as another reason for the poor performance.
On social media X he said: “The first turn incident may have thrown her off her game, or maybe the three-week turnaround wasn’t my best choice. She showed no signs she couldn’t handle that. I’m more critical of myself than anyone.”
The filly received a clean bill of health after McPeek had sent her to get checked by the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital. In the race, Chad Brown’s Raging Sea held on by three-quarters of a length under Flavien Prat to beat Taxed with the same distance back to Randomized
Raging Sea, a five-year-old daughter of Curlin, won four of six starts last year to be listed for the Eclipse Award for champion older dirt female, but lost to Idiomatic, whom she had beaten in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign Stakes before finishing second to Thorpedo Anna in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff last November.
Repole on a roll
It was a good weekend for the Repole Stable who saw their two high class colts of 2024 return to action with a win.
On Friday evening, the Grade 1 Travers winner Fierceness returned with a win in the Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes as his main rival Locked could only manage fourth. Finish of the weekend came on Saturday in the seven-furlong Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes. Four horses passed the line with just a neck, a dead-heat and a head separating them. It was Mindframe, trained by Todd Pletcher and owned by Repole Stable & St Elias Stable, who came on the outside to get up in the final strides to beat Banishing and Nysos. The son of Constitution had finished second in the Belmont and Haskell last year as a three-year-old.
Turf stars
The Grade 1 Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic over nine furlongs went to the six-year-old gelding Spirit Of St Louis, while there was an Irish-bred winner in the mile and half a furlong Grade 1 American Turf Stakes when Zulu Kingdom, a son of Ten Sovereigns, bred by Ecurie Peregrine, took the honours by a length and a quarter. The colt had won a Saint Cloud maiden for Andre Fabre last season before finishing behind Henri Matisse in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. New Century who recently moved from Andrew Balding’s yard to Brendan Walsh in the US was back in third.
Godolphin had another good winner in the Grade 2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint with Think Big, a four-year-old by Twirling Candy looking a horse to note over sprint distances. Irishman Ben Curtis is having a good season, and riding here for Michael Stidham, he partnered the gelding to a length and a quarter success.
Among the fillies, the Richard Mandella-trained Kopion gained a lot of praise for her effort in winning the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff Stakes over seven furlongs. In the Spendthrift Farm colours, the four-year-old daughter of Omaha Beach was handled by jockey Kazushi Kimura, to make her challenge inside the furlong pole, and pulling away by three lengths. The Grade 3 Modesty Stakes on the turf gave She Feels Pretty another graded success. Trained by Cherie DeVaux, She Feels Pretty closed her 2024 campaign with victories in two Grade 1s.