Charles Town: Book Review clearly best in Charles Town Oaks

Book Review, rebounding from the only poor race of her career when she was bounced around at the start, collected her first career stakes victory in Saturday night’s $400,000 Charles Town Oaks.

The seven-furlong Oaks was the richest race on an 11-race, all-stakes card with purses totaling $685,000.

Book Review ($4.80), the favorite in a field of 10 3-year-old fillies, ran down 17-1 longshot Holiday Soiree and 5-2 second choice Beautiful But Blue in the stretch to win by 1 3/4 lengths.

Kentucky-based Holiday Soiree, who had faced older fillies and mares in each of her last two starts, moved between horses in deep stretch to get second by a half-length. Beautiful But Blue, third in last month’s Grade 1 Test, finished third and Amie’s Dini, the third-place finisher in the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks in July, was fourth.

Book Review, a daughter of Giant’s Causeway, was ridden by Javier Castellano for trainer Chad Brown and owner Gary and Mary West. It was her third win in six lifetime starts.

In her stakes debut in the Aug. 25 Test, Book Review was eliminated at the start when she broke outward and was bumped. She wound up seventh, the only time she has been worse than third.

Book Review had a somewhat similar troubled beginning in the Oaks. Shortly after the start, she bumped with Say a Novena and settled near the back of the pack. Book Review was eighth after the first half-mile in 46.67 seconds and Castellano had to steer her five wide on the final turn to allow her to launch her rally. At the eighth pole, Beautiful But Blue and Holiday Soiree were heads apart for the lead, with Book Review in fourth, but she finished strongest of all to pull clear late.

“She usually doesn't break that well. The last two times she hasn't really broke," Castellano said. "This time she broke a lot better than normal but still not good enough to be real close going into the first turn. I saved enough ground on the first turn to be able to go wide and make the run around the second turn. She just kept giving tonight.”