Brown unhappy Dunbar Road excluded from Kentucky Oaks

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Chad Brown was disappointed that he didn’t get the chance to run his lightly raced filly Dunbar Road in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks and called the system Churchill Downs utilizes to determine the field “flawed.”

Though Dunbar Road had just a maiden win and a runner-up finish to Champagne Anyone in the Gulfstream Park Oaks on her résumé, Brown was really high on the filly’s chances in the Oaks. So, apparently, was the morning-line maker, who installed Dunbar Road as the 5-1 second choice behind Bellafina (2-1).

“The system is flawed,” Brown said Friday morning. “It just doesn’t make any sense. When you have the second choice on the morning not in the race, the system doesn’t work.”

Churchill Downs utilizes the same system for the Oaks – which is limited to 14 starters because its distance is 1 1/8 miles and starts in midstretch – as it does for the Derby to determine the field if more than the maximum number of horses are entered. The Derby, run at 1 1/4 miles and which starts at the top of the stretch, allows 20 starters.

Horses earn qualifying points based on a top-four finish in select races in a series that began last fall and lasted through the spring. In the event two or more horses have the same number of points, the tie is broken based on earnings in non-restricted stakes. Both Dunbar Road and Flor de la Mar had 40 points, but Flor de la Mar, second in the Grade 1, $400,000 Santa Anita Oaks, had $80,000 in non-restricted stakes earnings compared to Dunbar Road’s $49,500 earned finishing second in the Grade 2, $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks.

Brown said Dunbar Road would be flown back to New York on Monday. He will nominate her to the Grade 2, $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico on May 17, but has not yet determined if that’s where she’ll run.

Point of Honor, who was the other also-eligible, with 20 qualifying points, will make her next start in the Black-Eyed Susan, according to trainer George Weaver.