Dream Dance gets her shot in Fair Grounds Oaks

The Fair Grounds Oaks has been a gold mine for producing winners of the Kentucky Oaks: Six of the last 11 winners of the Fair Grounds Oaks, starting with Ashado in 2004, went on to capture the Churchill Downs filly classic.

Odds are that the trend won’t repeat itself this year, given how Songbird and Cathryn Sophia have been so dominant on opposite coasts. Even a huge effort by the Fair Grounds Oaks winner on Saturday would make her no better than a fringe player going forward to Kentucky.

Stageplay and Land Over Sea are the morning-line choices in a field of nine, while Dream Dance is a filly seeking to make herself known when she returns from a four-month layoff. Dream Dance was 128-1 in the Kentucky Oaks Future Wager, which closed March 13. She’s 8-1 on the Fair Grounds Oaks morning line.

“There was nothing wrong with her,” trainer Neil Howard told Fair Grounds publicity staff last weekend. “She just wasn’t where we wanted her to be, and this is kind of a ‘Plan B-plus’ for her. She has plenty of seasoning, but we just weren’t ready with her. Right now, she’s just got to get started, and after this race, we’ll discuss what she’ll be doing.”