Last year, 43-year-old trainer Whit Beckman took his first trek down the Kentucky Derby trail with Honor Marie, and Beckman’s high opinion of 3-year-old filly Simply Joking suggests he harbors strong hope she’ll take him to his first Kentucky Oaks. Beckman regarded Simply Joking highly enough to debut her in the $100,000 Letellier Stakes on Dec. 21, and having won that sprint debut, Simply Joking stretches to one mile and 70 yards Saturday in the $150,000 Silverbulletday. The Silverbulletday drew eight entrants but no more than seven will go and as few as four could run. Trainer Brad Cox entered Chasten and California Sunset, but the latter starts Sunday at Fair Grounds in a first-level allowance. Trainer Kenny McPeek has Golden Gamble, Gowells Delight, and She’s a Swede but said one of the first two could be scratched. Bless the Broken holds an entry at Aqueduct in the Busanda Stakes but trainer Will Walden said the filly will run at Fair Grounds. Beckman himself also has Drexel Hill entered in the Sunday allowance, and while earlier this week he leaned toward the Silverbulletday, Drexel Hill may still wind up racing Sunday. Fifth behind the Beckman-trained Her Laugh in the Untapable Stakes, Drexel Hill will race for the first time in blinkers. Simply Joking won the Letellier despite making a series of mistakes that typically get a first-time starter beat. She broke poorly, raced wide while trying to get into contention around the turn, cruised up to the lead at the head of the stretch looking like a sure winner, but found herself in a dogfight with a talented once-started filly named Whata Moon. Having done everything so easily training into her debut, Simply Joking got caught off guard by her determined rival, switching to her wrong lead at the furlong grounds, trying to lean in. All this, and she still won by a neck, the 79 Beyer Speed Figure initially assigned later change to an 84 that stands out Saturday. Simply Joking is by Practical Joke, who gets 18 percent dirt sprint winners and 12 percent in routes. She’s the second named foal out of the E Dubai mare Imply, a stakes winner over 1 1/16 miles. Imply’s first foal, Drum Roll Please, won the one-mile Jerome a year ago. Simply Joking herself stands over a wide swath of ground and, physically, doesn’t look distance-limited. “I don’t think that’s going to be any issue,” Beckman said. Simply Joking and Jaime Torres could wind up leading if the filly breaks more alertly this time. But don’t expect Golden Gamble, second by 2 1/2 lengths to Her Laugh last out, to drop as far off the pace as she did in the Untapable. Third in her debut, a two-turn Churchill maiden, Golden Gamble won second time out by nine lengths, “a rocket ship that day,” in McPeek’s words. Three lengths off a solid pace in the maiden win, Golden Gamble dropped back to seventh of eight behind a tepid Untapable tempo, too relaxed for her own good. By the time she got rolling, Her Laugh was gone. “I think she should have won last time, but it just didn’t happen,” McPeek said. Gowells Delight, another Practical Joke filly, debuted in a dirt route Dec. 26 at Fair Grounds and won by 5 1/2 lengths with a solid 75 Beyer. “She won that race 80 percent ready. She’s going to move forward even more. She might even be the stronger of the entry,” McPeek said. Chasten, a Juddmonte homebred, is by Into Mischief out of the First Defence mare Lockdown; her half-sister is the champion dirt route mare Idiomatic. Chasten won her seven-furlong debut Nov. 30 at Churchill, posting a modest 68 Beyer. Cox feels certain she’ll improve at two turns. “She can run. She hasn’t been good out of the gate, but hopefully that gets better, and she’s definitely better going long. She needs maturation, has some learning to do. I don’t know if she’s ready to win,” Cox said. The Silverbulletday is the first 42-point race in Churchill Downs’s Road to the Kentucky Oaks. The winner gets 20 of those qualifying points. Beckman likes his chances. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.