Battis Grove

It was a battle of homebred debutantes down to the wire in Friday's fourth race on the Kentucky Oaks undercard at Churchill, as Godolphin's PASSERINE (f, 3, Nyquist--Al Andaleeb, by Bernardini) got just the better of OXO Equine's Battis Grove (Practical Joke) following an enervatiing final-furlong throwdown. Debuting at odds of 28-5, Passerine took up a position around midfield, with Battis Grove a couple of lengths ahead of her as the field raced down the Churchill backstretch. Working her way into it nicely while covering a bit of ground on...