Five-time winner Zaghruta favored over promising cast

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park holds a number of stakes for fillies and mares going a route of ground, and some of the track’s next generation of quality distaffers could emerge from Sunday’s seventh race.

The second-level allowance at 1 1/16 miles drew a promising cast of six. It shares a card with a nonwinners-of-three lifetime allowance sprint that features stakes winners Max Got Excited, R Heisman, and Touch Catch.

Zaghruta could go favored in the allowance route after winning the fifth race of her career Dec. 21 at Oaklawn. Making her 11th start, she fought for a nose win in the first-level allowance at 1 1/16 miles. The Beyer Speed Figure of 80 earned by the 4-year-old daughter of Gun Runner and the multiple stakes-winning mare Bling On the Music is the best last-race Beyer in Sunday’s field.

Luis Saez was aboard for the win for Sumaya US Stable and trainer Brad Cox. Saez has the mount once again from post 2. Zaghruta has been effective from both on and off the pace and could get a tracking trip.

Legal Empress is a capable starter at a price. She was stakes-placed as a 3-year-old last season at Oaklawn when third in the Martha Washington. In more recent times, Legal Empress has been racing at Delta Downs, where she was second by a head in a mile allowance in her last start Nov. 26. Legal Empress has since been working at Oaklawn.

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Legal Empress is a daughter of Tiz the Law and the Grade 2-winning mare Dothraki Queen. She tends to sit just off the pace and could get a tracking trip when she and jockey Tyler Bacon start from post 3.

Aledean won a conditioned allowance at Delta Downs in her last start Dec. 18 over 7 1/2 furlongs. She rallied from just off the leaders in the two-turn race. Aledean is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Chi Town Lady.

As a stakes winner, Jenkin is the most accomplished member of the field. At 2, she won the Year’s End going a mile at Oaklawn. Now 4, she enters Sunday’s race off a fifth-place finish in a two-other-than allowance route at Fair Grounds.

Decadent was Grade 3-placed at a mile on turf in September, when third in the Winter Memories at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet. She is a multiple winner on dirt, with one of those victories coming at the distance of this race at Oaklawn.

Our Davina was second in a ratings handicap at a mile last out at Sam Houston.

◗ Publisher, who was second in last year’s Arkansas Derby, leads race 2, a maiden special weight for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/16 miles. He was second at this level last out to Nu What’s New, who earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 101 that afternoon and returned in his next start to capture a local first-level allowance by 12 1/2 lengths with a 103 Beyer.

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