Catalano enjoying good health, good horses

LOUISVILLE, KY. – Wayne Catalano is just happy to be here at Churchill Downs – and not in the usual sense that the trainer of a Kentucky Oaks filly feels fortunate.

Catalano, the trainer of Oaks contender Oceanwave, was hospitalized for several weeks last summer in suburban Chicago with a severe bout of influenza and pneumonia. He eventually recovered, but the scare gave him a renewed appreciation for life.

“Makes ya think,” he said Tuesday on the Churchill backside.

While the Oaks marks easily her most difficult assignment to date, Oceanwave has never run a bad race. A gray filly owned by Gary and Mary West, she was third in her career debut here in September before ending an abbreviated 2-year-old campaign with a narrow maiden victory at Keeneland. In her three starts at 3, all at Oaklawn Park, she won an allowance sprint before finishing second in back-to-back Grade 3 stakes, the Honeybee and Fantasy.

“She had quite a bit of trouble in both of those stakes and actually should’ve won both, in my opinion,” said Catalano. “I’m not sure how we’ll match up, but nobody knows until they line ‘em up and let ‘em go. Our filly’s doing great right now, and that’s all I’m focused on.”

Catalano, a perennial leading trainer in Chicago, has had three previous Oaks starters: Dreaming of Anna, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2006, ran sixth in 2007; Sacristy was seventh in 2012; and Aurelia’s Belle was ninth last year.