It’s a Girl Thing

Happy Oaks Day!

Churchill Downs race 11 / 5:45 pm ET on BravoTV
G1 $500k Kentucky Oaks for 3yo fillies going 1-1/8 mi.

1. It’s Tea Time (Arnold / Garcia) … never been shorter than a mile and she comes in off a stellar Ashland try; given the only big concern is 2 turf + 1 poly races she’s been training beautifully here
2. Jody Slew (Calhoun / Mena) … she’s done nothing wrong in her long career and all of her starts have come over tracks similar to today’s, but she seems to be a class below this field
3. Quiet Temper (Romans / Albarado) … has been worse than 2nd just once in her career and she figures to run well today too - likes training over the track and loves her some fast dirt
4. Age of Humor (Maker / Maragh) … biggest concern for this filly would be that she seems to hang enough to continually get herself beat - there are better longshots to play shere
5. Blind Luck (Hollendorfer / Bejarano) … hummuna hummuna hummuna … baby ain’t done nothing wrong in her career - never off the board, comes off the synthetics and still finds a way to win (only running her best Beyer in the process); ok, if you wanna knock her: she’s got one “bad” race that was a 1/2-length loss that should’ve been a lot more
6. Beautician (McPeek / Solis) … famously known as the last hope for my fantasy stable … can’t like that she dinged her own leg in a work earlier this week and they had to reconfigure her shoeing (that usually means something more than “she took a funky step”) - given her price, that she’s gobbled up ground in her works, and she hearts Churchill and fast dirt, I just can’t turn away completely
7. Crisp (Sadler / Rosario) … honey looked fantastic jogging pre-dawn in the slop on Monday and has done zero wrong in 5 starts - she’s Blind Luck’s equal here and at a better price
8. Tidal Pool (Lukas / Borel) … is a winner over this track and should like today’s conditions - looked as good as the boys who worked on Monday
9. Bella Diamante (Milligan / Smith) … was surprised by her earlier this week - nice looking, big strong tush on her - don’t know if she’s good enough to beat this bunch, though
10. Champagne d’Oro (Guillot / Garcia) … I got to spend like an hour with her in the shedrow, so I have to remove my OMG Isn’t She Sweet bias for a moment … don’t like the wins her maiden officially then turns around in the Fair Grounds Oaks but she’s seemingly handled it all in stride - biggest concern would be that she hasn’t won the 4 previous times Martin’s gotten on (he was on for the DQ from purse money incident)
11. Evening Jewel (Cassidy / Desormeaux) … looked insanely amazing galloping on Wednesday - can’t argue with a filly at a price with a run line like hers and she’s being overlooked by some bigger named SoCal invaders
12. Ailalea (Pletcher / Velazquez) … gets the blinkers because she gets into trouble every time she runs (usually getting hung way wide) - she fits good here, not great, so I would look elsewhere
13. Amen Hallelujah (Dutrow / Leparoux) … totally have 4 headlines planned if she wins … she attacks the track and won first time dirt two back and was second last out, so getting dirt in her face isn’t an issue - it won’t surprise me if she wins
14. Joanie’s Catch (Rose / Lopez) … she’s been facing fillies about 2 tiers before this bunch and all her 18 starts couldn’t prepare her for this group

Shake Your MoneyMaker:
$1 Ex Box … 5, 8, 13 … $6 total
$5 WPS … 1, 10 … $30 total