Daddys Lil Darling on the road again for American Oaks

ARCADIA, Calif. – The well-traveled Daddys Lil Darling will race at her seventh track this year when she starts in Saturday’s Grade 1 American Oaks at Santa Anita.

Since her first start of the year in March, Daddys Lil Darling has had a productive season. She won the Dueling Ground Oaks at Kentucky Downs in September, her only win in eight starts this year, and has been second in three Grade 1 stakes for 3-year-old fillies – the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland in April, the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in May, and the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on turf at Keeneland in October.

“She’s been a bit of a bridesmaid,” trainer Ken McPeek said earlier this week. “Second in the Ashland, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Kentucky Oaks – those are moral victories.”

Daddys Lil Darling also raced at Tampa Bay Downs, Belmont Park, and Saratoga. There is more to her season than hop-scotching trips from Florida to Kentucky to New York and back to Kentucky from mid-March to late November.

Daddys Lil Darling was sent to England for the Group 1 Epsom Oaks in early June. She was a late scratch after she became spooked during a thunderstorm during warmups and ran off at a furious pace under jockey Olivier Peslier, who was unseated.

“We expected her to run well and it was an unfortunate set of circumstances,” McPeek said. “What are you going to do?

“You just bite the bullet and go back home. You can’t unring a bell.”

The race was won by Enable, who developed into the leading horse in Europe.

A top-two finish in the American Oaks will make Daddys Lil Darling a millionaire. Owned by Normandy Farm, Daddys Lil Darling has won 3 of 14 starts and earned $958,405. Through all the travels this year, Daddys Lil Darling has thrived, McPeek said.

“She might be as good now as she’s been,” he said. “Could we have won more races by being less ambitious? Maybe.

“We had the goal of winning a Grade 1. We might get that goal at the end of the year.”

The $300,000 American Oaks is run at 1 1/4 miles on turf for 3-year-old fillies and will be the first start for Daddys Lil Darling in California since a fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita in November 2016.

The American Oaks contenders include New Money Honey, who won the Belmont Oaks in July; Beau Recall and Madam Dancealot, who were second and third in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks in August; and Rymska, who has won three consecutive turf stakes, at Gulfstream Park, Laurel and Aqueduct, this year.

The American Oaks will have a field of about 10, the largest expected for the three graded stakes Saturday at Santa Anita.

The candidates for the Grade 3 Robert Frankel Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf include Responsibleforlove, who won the CTT and TOC Handicap at Del Mar in August and was later third in the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita in September.

Masochistic, who has not raced since finishing 13th in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes in May, will start in Saturday’s Grade 3 Midnight Lute Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs, trainer Bob Baffert said. A 7-year-old gelding who has won three stakes, Masochistic was transferred from Ron Ellis to Baffert earlier this year by owners Samantha Siegel and Will Shamlian.