The fingerprints of Gainesway’s past and present can be found all over this year’s Kentucky Oaks. Nowhere are they imprinted deeper than with Ashland Stakes runner-up Eskimo Kisses, who is co-campaigned as a homebred by Gainesway, the Lexington, Ky., operation of Antony Beck. Eskimo Kisses will attempt to emulate the success of another prominent Gainesway resident who won a big race at Churchill Downs in early May, her granddam Winning Colors, who triumphed in the 1988 Kentucky Derby. Winning Colors was sold to Gainesway as a broodmare prospect for $4.1 million at the 1989 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. It was an establishing purchase for Antony’s father, Graham Beck, who had bought the initial Gainesway property for $7.5 million earlier that year. All 10 of Winning Colors’s foals would be bred in whole or in partnership by Gainesway. She was buried on the operation’s Greentree Farm property when she died 2008. Success as a broodmare did not come as readily for Winning Colors as it did on the racetrack. She produced six winners, but none won a stakes. Her runners were highlighted by the Japanese Group 3-placed Golden Colors and U.S. stakes-placed Ocean Colors. Antony Beck had been in charge of Gainesway for a decade when in 2007 Winning Colors had her final foal, the Mr. Greeley mare Silver Colors. She went unplaced in four career starts, all in England. Though Silver Colors’s race record was unspectacular, Beck was eager to bring her back to Gainesway to join the broodmare band. “She may well have been one of the most beautiful yearling fillies I’ve ever seen, and she’s probably the most beautiful mare at Gainesway right now,” Beck said. “Although she did not have much ability on the track, I’m not surprised that she has produced really good runners.” Silver Colors’s first foal, the Candy Ride colt Silver Ride, is a four-time winner and has earned more than $200,000. Her next foal, a filly by Gainesway’s flagship sire Tapit named Tapping Colors, sold to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm for $700,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September yearling sale. Pope came back to Keeneland the following season for a full brother, named Tapit High, who brought a sale-topping $2.1 million. Silver Colors visited another Gainesway resident for her fourth mating, the young To Honor and Serve, which produced Eskimo Kisses. The filly was scratched from two sales as a yearling, but she caught the eye of trainer Kenny McPeek, who arranged a partnership to buy a half-interest from Beck. Silver Colors has shown a tendency to give size to her foals, and McPeek said that factored into the development plan for Eskimo Kisses, who has never raced at a distance shorter than a mile in seven career starts. “We made a real point that she ran long all her career, and we started that last fall,” the trainer said. “I think it’s contributed to her getting better all the time. “She’s what I call a 12s horse. She pops away [fractions] at the 12-12-12-12-12. The farther you run those, the better you do. The long-term goal is the Alabama. That would be a fantastic race to knock off, but we shall see.” Further establishing the Gainesway brand in the Oaks field is Ashland winner Momomoy Girl, who was co-bred by Michael Hernon, the farm’s director of sales, under the name Highfield Ranch. Monomoy Girl was in-utero when Hernon partnered with Brendan and Olive Gallagher of Frankfort Park Farm to buy her dam, the winning Henny Hughes mare Drumette, for $75,000 at the 2014 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. The filly is by Tapizar, another Gainesway resident and a son of Tapit. “She’s a Storm Cat-line mare, and she’s a particularly good physical,” Hernon said about Drumette. “Tapit has had significant success with Storm Cat mares. Hansen is out of a Storm Cat mare, and Tell a Kelly is a Grade 1-winning filly. Drumette is a really good physical herself, and we’re glad we made the winning bid.” Drumette now resides at Frankfort Park Farm in Lexington, and was bred to Shackleford for the 2018 foaling season. Hernon said he’s closely followed Monomoy Girl’s progress through her ascension into the national racing scene, and he remains impressed with the level of maturity she’s shown since taking her first steps. “She was big and impressive,” he said about Monomoy Girl as a foal. “She was strong. She got on her feet 20 minutes after coming out of her mother. She was always a good baby, and she was class. If you saw her in the paddock [for the Ashland], she was absolutely the quietest horse of all of them.” Rounding out the Oaks hopefuls with Gainesway ties is My Miss Lilly, who is a daughter of Tapit. My Miss Lilly, winner of the Grade 2 Gazelle Stakes, will aim to become the second Oaks winner by her sire, following champion Untapable in 2014. Tapit also tallied a second-place effort with Shook Up in 2015.