Bonny South an all-Juddmonte product

A Munnings filly out of a Tapit mare won the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks on Saturday – just not the one everyone expected.

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Bonny South won her third consecutive race as she upset the Fair Grounds Oaks. Heavy favorite Finite, bred on the same pedigree cross, faded to fourth.

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Bonny South is a Juddmonte Farms homebred trained by Brad Cox. Juddmonte and Cox lost the unbeaten filly Taraz to a training injury in February at Oaklawn Park. Days prior, Bonny South had won an optional-claiming race at the Arkansas track.

Juddmonte, a five-time Eclipse Award honoree as the nation’s outstanding breeder, has been involved with Bonny South’s family for more than three decades, since purchasing her third dam, Nijinsky Star, a daughter of Nijinsky II and champion Chris Evert, for $700,000 out of the 1987 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Offshoots of this family have produced stars for Juddmonte, including European champion Special Duty, Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Expert Eye, and the multiple Grade 1 winners Sightseek and Tates Creek.

Nijinsky Star’s foals include the unraced Nureyev mare Willstar, who produced several stakes horses for Juddmonte, including Group 1 winner and stakes producer Etoile Montante. Bred to Tapit, Willstar produced Touch the Star, who is the dam of Bonny South. Touch the Star has a 2-year-old full sister to Bonny South, named Sun Path, and a yearling full brother waiting in the wings.