GI Kentucky Oaks

Submissions for the Friday, May 2 Kentucky Oaks Survivors Parade are now being accepted, Churchill Downs announced Monday morning. This year's event will honor 150 Breast and Ovarian cancer survivors and fighters with tickets for the recipient, plus one guest, to attend the 151st Kentucky Oaks to participate in the march on the track. Those who have overcome or are battling a breast or ovarian cancer diagnosis, who have never participated in the Oaks Survivors Parade, may submit their story here until Friday Feb. 28. Those who are nominating a...

There were no secrets heading into the GIII Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita Sunday afternoon. Carded early in the program, the short three-horse field was a headed by a pair of pricey Bob Baffert runners--GI Del Mar Debutante winner Tenma (Nyquist), campaigned by Boama Corp. and Speedway Stables' Cipriani (Bernardini), named a TDN Rising Star following an 8 1/4-length victory in Arcadia last October. When the dust had settled, it was the hotly-backed 2-5 choice Tenma that proved best on the day. The win earned Tenma 20 additional qualifying...

Tickets for Kentucky Derby Week and the entire 43-day Spring Meet, which spans nine weeks from Apr. 26-June 29 at Churchill Downs, go on sale Thursday at noon (all times Eastern), the track said in a release on Wednesday. Tickets for the 151st Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby May 2-3 are available by clicking here or by calling (502) 636-4447. Churchill Downs also provides a secure, official resale marketplace to purchase Derby and Oaks tickets via the Churchill Downs Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange, which can be found here. Derby Week general...

In the Fasig-Tipton Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds it was Simply Joking (Practical Joke) who took home the prize with a gate to wire display and the 20 points which can be applied to her 'Road to the Kentucky Oaks' account. The 3-year-old came into the race having only one other start under her belt when the Pennsylvania-bred captured the Letellier Memorial Stakes in New Orleans Dec. 21. Backed as the 8-5 choice here, Simply Joking was handed a rather easy lead and proceeded to make every pole a winning...

Old Friends, the Thoroughbred retirement farm in Georgetown, Kentucky, welcomed last month 2003 GI Kentucky Oaks winner Bird Town (Cape Town) and 2009 Kentucky Oaks runner-up Stone Legacy (Birdstone), the nonprofit via a release on Thursday. Bird Town is the first Kentucky Oaks winner retired to the farm. Both horses were donated to Old Friends thanks to the generosity of Marylou Whitney Stables. "Under any circumstances, Old Friends would be honored to welcome these two accomplished mares," said John Nicholson, Old Friends's president and CEO. "The fact that they come...

With 50 horses stabled at Payson Park Training Center this winter for the first time in his two-decade career, the 2020 and '21 Eclipse Award-winning trainer Brad Cox now has a geographically easier time targeting Florida races. On Wednesday, Cox won with his first Tampa Bay Downs starter since 2019. And since Nov. 30, he's compiled a 1-3-0 record from six starts at Gulfstream Park, where he started only 50 runners over the past five years, generally by shipping in from his customary bases at Fair Grounds and Oaklawn Park,...

1/ST, the ownership group behind Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita Park, is partnering with auction company Fasig-Tipton, who will be their title sponsor for the new Fasig-Tipton 3-Year-Old Filly Series, the company said in a press release on Wednesday. The collaboration will spotlight the GII Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Park Oaks and the GII Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita Oaks, which are the final preps at both tracks for the GI Kentucky Oaks. The new series will debut Jan. 1 at Gulfstream Park with the Fasig-Tipton Cash Run Stakes and will conclude with the...

6th-BAQ, $90K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1 1/16mT, 3:16 p.m. ET. DIVINE ROSE (Good Magic) has reached her unveiling under the watchful eye of trainer Cherie DeVaux. The John Gunther and Eurowest homebred is a half-sister to GI Central Bank Ashland Stakes heroine and 'TDN Rising Star' Leslie's Rose (Into Mischief). Both are out of unraced Wildwood Rose (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who herself is a half-sister to GI Kentucky Oaks runner-up My Miss Sophia (Unbridled's Song)--the dam of 'TDN Rising Star' and current sire Annapolis (War Front). Also set for a...

BENSALEM, PA -- The look of sheer relief on the face of trainer Ken McPeek pretty much said it all. Sent off the long odds-on pop and with the bullseye squarely on her back in Saturday's $1-million GI Cotillion Stakes at Parx Racing, 'TDN Rising Star' Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) was forced into a perilous trip and found herself locked away for the better part of the opening seven furlongs, but the great ones find a way to win when the chips are down and she clawed her way past...

Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse won 15 races out of 53 starts during the tough as nails Saratoga meet this season, which amounted to a 28% clip. One of those runners who got her picture taken was La Cara (Street Sense--Cara Caterina, by Bernardini). Off that performance, she rolled into Louisville for the GIII Pocahontas Stakes and won, which earned her 10 points on the path to next May's running of the GI Kentucky Oaks. In the first two starts of her career under the Twin Spires earlier this...

Leading the graded stakes action on Saturday, there is something gruff and boomy about the barbaric 'yalp' of the European invaders who are set to swarm Woodbine's gates on Turf Champions Day. One can understand this hoard's verve as the booty is worth pillaging since three out of the four Grade I races on the docket are connected to some highly-prized Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' tickets.   Euros Wind Trebuchets Out of this auspicious Canadian slate, first up is the GI Natalma Stakes which offers entry into the...

Everyone has their superstitions before a big race. For Mark Edwards, it's the shirt he was wearing when Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) broke her maiden by over eight lengths and became a 'TDN Rising Star' at Keeneland last October. He's worn the same shirt for every one of her races since then other than her only career loss last year in the GII Golden Rod, so you can bet that Edwards will be sporting his shirt this weekend when Thorpedo Anna takes on the boys in the GI Travers Stakes....