Amoss monitoring Serengeti Princess as Kentucky Oaks approaches

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Oaks remains in play for Serengeti Empress, whose bleeding incident in the Fair Grounds Oaks has cast doubt on whether she’ll be among the 14 3-year-old fillies in the starting gate for the May 3 race.

Serengeti Empress is comfortably above the qualifying-points cutoff for the Grade 1, $1 million Oaks, but trainer Tom Amoss wants to make sure the speedy daughter of Alternation is 100 percent healthy before committing her to the Churchill Downs filly classic.

“She’s been galloping on a daily basis at Churchill,” said Amoss. “Her first breeze will be Tuesday, weather permitting. It’ll be an easy work, and she’ll have to show us that she doesn’t bleed for us to move forward. If she’s okay, we’ll come back a week or so later with a harder work, and she’ll have to show us again she’s okay. Right now, everything is – we don’t know.”

Serengeti Empress trickled blood out of her nostril and was basically eased in the March 23 Fair Grounds Oaks, for which she was the 3-10 favorite primarily on the basis of a 4 1/2-length romp in her prior start, the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra, for which she received an 89 Beyer Speed Figure. The filly has been quite an all-or-nothing proposition, with two eye-catching romps last year being followed by a 17 1/2-length defeat in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in November.

As of Friday, Serengeti Empress was listed as No. 7 on the Oaks points list. Bellafina, an easy last-out winner of the Santa Anita Oaks for Simon Callaghan, heads the list as the likely favorite for the 1 1/8-mile race.

Although the Fantasy on Friday at Oaklawn Park was likely to shake up the standings, these were the top 14 points-earners among the fillies believed by Churchill racing officials to be pointing to the Oaks as of Friday: Bellafina, Champagne Anyone, Street Band, Out for a Spin, Liora, Restless Rider, Serengeti Empress, Jaywalk, Chocolate Kisses, Jeltrin, Divine Image, Positive Spirit, Flor de la Mar, Cookie Dough, and Dunbar Road.