She Feels Pretty

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Undefeated GI Kentucky Oaks heroine and Godolphin homebred Good Cheer (Medaglia d'Oro) will put her perfect seven-for-seven record on the line as she takes on six rivals in Friday's GI DK Horse Acorn S. at the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course. The Acorn is one of six graded stakes races on Friday's 14-race program, which also features three other Grade I events--the GI Ogden Phipps S., a 'Win and You're In' for the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff at Del Mar; the GI New...

Knowing when a horse is ready to take a step up and when it's time to take a step back--it's one of the fundamentals of training. Get it right and you get rewarded. Get it wrong and, well, you'll likely know pretty quickly. Some trainers just seem to have a feel for where that line is, a sense of when to ask for more and when the horse might need a little more time and preparation. Cherie DeVaux is learning to hone that intuition. "It is a balance to be...

Pretty is as pretty does. And what Lael Stables' She Is Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}) does, she does with routine brilliance. Pretty good. Pretty convincing. Pretty devastating. And pretty much the one they'll be trying to beat in the top-level middle-distance contests to come over the summer and fall in the distaff turf division following a comprehensive victory in Friday's GIII Modesty Stakes at Churchill Downs on her seasonal debut. Sent off at skinny, yet reasonable odds of 3-5--a penny shy of 4-5--the $240,000 Keeneland September graduate raced outside in the second...

Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna), who was named Horse of the Year and champion of her generation at the Eclipse Award ceremonies in January, was recognized with the same honors at Friday night's annual champion Kentucky-Bred Awards Dinner. The daughter of Sataves (Uncle Mo) was campaigned to six wins from seven starts in 2024, highlighted by victories in the GI Longines Kentucky Oaks and GI Breeders' Cup Distaff. In total, she took out five elite-level contests and was narrowly runner-up in the GI Travers Stakes against the boys while earning better...

A victory in the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup can lead even the most disciplined connections to call an audible, deviating from a more conservative approach in favor of a start in a race as alluring as the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf just weeks later. But trainer Cherie DeVaux and the Lael Stables of Roy and Gretchen stuck to their guns and sent the enormously talented She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}) to California for the American Oaks, another chance at age-restricted Grade I glory while putting...

With so many roads now leading to Del Mar, traffic may feel pretty slow just now. But we should make a virtue of that, in that our preoccupation with the elite program tends to deny due attention to those achieving their success a tier or so below the very top. After all, such people have typically required no less skill, endeavor and patience, often denied the very highest rewards only through lacking similar parity in resources. Take the breeder of GIII Ontario Derby winner Dresden Row (Lord Nelson), whose emergence...

When he succumbed to colic in October 2011, aged just 14, there was a poignant sense that Bernstein had never quite lived up to his glamorous billing. He was a celebrity even as an embryo, carried through the Keeneland ring at the 1996 November Sale by a $1.9 million mare--La Affirmed (Affirmed), the second most expensive broodmare auctioned in America that year--as a full-sibling to two graded stakes winners by Storm Cat. On his safe delivery, his dam's purchasers at Brushwood Farm sent Bernstein back the following November to defray...

Trainer Cherie DeVaux achieved Saturday what many trainers work a lifetime to attain when taking Keeneland's GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup with Lael Stables' She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}). After having a day to digest the watershed moment, she summed up the experience succinctly. "Awesome ... amazing." According to DeVaux, a couple of changes factored in the filly's second Grade I win and DeVaux's first at the Lexington oval. "We expected her to run a good race," DeVaux said. "She was training well... she always trains well. She has...

After a pair of near-misses in graded company this summer, Lael Stables' She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}) left nothing to chance Saturday at Keeneland, skipping home the easiest of winners in the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes. The King's Plate winner Caitlinhergrtness (Omaha Beach) broke sharply and went right to the lead in the nine-furlong event, while She Feels Pretty, adding blinkers for this effort, sat just off the pacesetter and in cover along the rail. Caitlinhergrtness was clear through a quarter in :23.45 and a half in...

The absence of the 'Grizzly Bear' has not put a damper on Saturday's GI Alabama Stakes, neither for the connections in it nor likely for the betting public, but despite Candied (Candy Ride {Arg}) being the class of the field, it's not as cut and dry of an affair. Currently sitting cosy at 7-5 on the morning line, Candied is deservedly the one to beat as victory in the GI Darley Alcibiades Stakes, a third in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, and a gutsy second to 'TDN Rising Star'...

Cinderella's Dream (GB) (Shamardal), who lost her undefeated record when beaten just over four lengths into seventh in the G1 QIPCO 1000 Guineas at Newmarket May 5, atoned for that defeat in no uncertain terms, flashing home powerfully through the final furlong to take out Saturday's GI Fasig-Tipton Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes at Aqueduct. With fellow once-beaten She Feels Pretty (Karakontie {Jpn}) taking the lion's share of the pari-mutuel activity at odds of 4-5, Cinderella's Dream was a relatively generous 7-2 at the off and was content to take back...

Winner of three of his four starts on the grass last season, including two at the Grade III level, Amerman Racing's Endlessly (Oscar Performance) returns to the grass for the first time as a 3-year-old as the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Saturday's $750,000 GI Belmont Derby. Typically contested over 10 furlongs at Belmont Park, this year's renewal takes place over a mile and three-sixteenths at Aqueduct. Victorious in the GIII Del Mar Juvenile Turf and GIII Zuma Beach Stakes, Endlessly was a wide-trip eighth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile...