Carribean Caper looks to resume win streak as fresh filly in Roxelana Stakes

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Al Stall Jr. was talking about Carribean Caper for a couple minutes before he suddenly cut to the chase.

“She’s a racehorse,” Stall said. “She’s a Speightstown, a typical hard-knocking, one-two type of horse.”

That’s all been proven true, except that Carribean Caper – the heavy favorite Saturday in the opening-night feature of the Churchill Downs spring meet, the $160,000 Roxelana – shows nothing but a “1” at the finish in all five races on her past-performances. The 4-year-old will be making her first start in seven months after getting time off in Camden, S.C., following a decisive score here last September in the Grade 3 Dogwood.

“After the Dogwood, I went back and looked back at my training chart and said, ‘You know, this filly has been in training for a long time,’ ” Stall said. “We thought about the Dream Supreme and maybe the La Brea, but I didn’t want to throw her to the wolves.

“I thought, if we want to try to make the Breeders’ Cup [Filly and Mare Sprint] at Keeneland in 2022, let’s give her a breather, and it’s all worked out well so far. She came to me at Fair Grounds looking great after spending time with Frank Wootten in Camden. Her muscle, weight, her training – everything’s just right with her.”

Carribean Caper, with Colby Hernandez to ride, will break from the outside post in a field of just five fillies and mares in the six-furlong Roxelana, the ninth of 10 Saturday races. First post is 6 p.m. Eastern, with the Roxelana going under the lights at 10:11.

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Carribean Caper, trained by Stall for the Columbine Stable of Andrea Pollack, has won her five starts by a combined 24 lengths. Stall has proceeded very carefully with her, spotting her just once in a graded race, but said more testing spots will come along soon enough.

Neither the Grade 1 Madison, run earlier this month at Keeneland, nor the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff, set for the May 7 Kentucky Derby undercard, “made any sense to me,” Stall said. “We’ll find something somewhere. I just want to get going in a race like this. I’m glad they moved it to opening night, or else we probably would’ve started back in the Skipat,” a Preakness Day undercard fixture on May 21 at Pimlico.

The Roxelana, named for the standout sprinter trained by the late William “Blackie” Huffman, had been run a few weeks later in the spring meet in previous years.

Using a stalking style that has never failed her, Carribean Caper figures to find herself lurking just off an early pace likely to be contested by Euphoric (post 1, Gerardo Corrales) and Cheetara (post 2, James Graham). Just behind that forward flight, Bayerness (post 3, Luis Saez) and the battle-tested Club Car (post 4, Corey Lanerie) will be looking to make up late ground.