Finite looms large in compact Fair Grounds Oaks field

Finite never runs a bad race, but she’d never run an especially fast one until the Rachel Alexandra Stakes last month at Fair Grounds. In a normal year, the sky would be the limit for Finite coming into the Grade 2, $400,000 Fair Grounds Oaks. Instead, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the sky seems to be falling, and instead of Saturday’s race in New Orleans being a stop on the way to the Kentucky Oaks, it’s more of a terminus, with the spring and summer racing schedule so unsettled.

Finite has won five races in a row and the second digit in her odds Saturday is sure to be a 5; she’s priced at 3-5 on the Fair Grounds morning line and will be at least that short facing just five foes in the 1 1/16-mile local Oaks. From the rail out, the field consists of Antoinette, French Rose, Tempers Rising, Bonny South, Stop Shoppin Tammy, and Finite.

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Finite is by Munnings out of Remit, by Tapit, and was bred by Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds, which owns her with several partners. She started her career with a pair of dirt-sprint race second-place finishes before beginning her win skein in a Kentucky Downs maiden sprint last September. Finite then aired in the one-turn-mile Rags to Riches Stakes over Churchill Downs dirt, ground to a three-quarter-length victory in the Golden Rod Stakes, her two-turn debut, and was less than impressive eking out a win over pace-setting Ursula in the Silverbulletday in January at Fair Grounds.

“She just didn’t seem to be herself in the paddock or post parade,” D.J. Fiske, racing manager for Winchell, said in a conference call this week. “Normally, she’s calm and laid back, takes everything in stride, but that day she was very agitated, anxious, amped up . . . She still managed to grind out the win. I thought that was her worst race, and if that was her worst race, we’re in pretty good shape.”

Finite settled more comfortably for jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. in the Rachel Alexandra on Feb. 15, bursting to the lead past the quarter pole and going in to win by nearly five lengths over 2019 champion 2-year-old filly British Idiom. Her Beyer Speed Figure of 90 was a career-best by eight points and is 11 points higher than the next-highest figure in the Fair Grounds Oaks, a race her trainer, Steve Asmussen, has won three times.

Bonny South should be a defined second choice after beating subsequent Honeybee Stakes winner Shedaresthedevil in a Feb. 15 Oaklawn Park allowance race, her first race in blinkers.

“They helped her jump forward and run by far her best race, and I think if she can repeat that effort she can win,” said trainer Brad Cox.

Tempers Rising lost to Finite by only a neck in the Silverbulletday, but the gap between them was much greater – and likely more telling – in the Rachel Alexandra.

Rather than opposing Finite in the win pool, bettors seeking to extra value could consider playing Stop Shoppin Tammy underneath Finite in the exacta. Stop Shoppin Tammy has raced only twice, returning from a long layoff to win a maiden route race Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds. Stop Shoppin Tammy led throughout that start, galloping out with good energy, and could secure a comfortable spot on the front end Saturday.