Honeybee is Secret Oath's latest runaway victory

SPRINGS, Ark. - Secret Oath is fast establishing herself as one of the most exciting 3-year-old fillies on the Kentucky Oaks trail.

She won her third straight race of the Oaklawn Park meet on Saturday in the Grade 3, $300,000 Honeybee and with the victory picked up 50 points for the Kentucky Oaks.

The 7 1/2-length win followed a Dec. 31 allowance Secret Oath won by 8 1/4 lengths and the $200,000 Martha Washington, which she won by 7 1/4 lengths on Jan. 29.

“It was just another day at the office for her,” winning trainer D. Wayne Lukas said after the Honeybee. “She just comes waltzing home. If she’d run over to the hotel, she’d have still been widening. She doesn’t have any distance limitations at all.”

Secret Oath let the pace go early as Optionality set pressured fractions of 23.15 seconds for the opening quarter and 47.07 for the half-mile. Secret Oath advanced along the inside, had to wait behind rivals on the final turn, and struck the front approaching the quarter pole.

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From there, Secret Oath increased her advantage to the wire, covering a mile and a sixteenth on a track upgraded to fast a race earlier in 1:44.74. She paid $2.60 to win as a heavy favorite in the six-horse field.

Luis Contreras has been aboard for all three of Secret Oath’s Oaklawn victories.

“I think that if she was in the Rebel today, she would be tough,” Lukas said shortly after the Honeybee.

“She’s got a beautiful efficiency of motion. If you add any more distance to it, it’s going to make her that much more effective.”

Secret Oath is a daughter of Arrogate who races for her breeder, Briland Farm. Her dam, Absinthe Minded was a multiple stakes winner at Oaklawn who earned more than $600,000.

Lukas said before the Honeybee that the Kentucky Oaks is the spring objective for Secret Oath. She now has 60 points for the race, including her 10 from the Martha Washington.

Ice Orchid finished second in the Honeybee and earned 20 points for the Kentucky Oaks. It was another 1 3/4 lengths back in third to Yuugiri, who picked up 10 points. Free Like a Girl ran fourth, and earned 5 points.

The next local prep for the Kentucky Oaks is the Grade 3, $600,000 Fantasy on April 2. Lukas said she’s also been nominated to the Grade 1, $1.2 million Arkansas Derby.

Secret Oath has now won 4 of 6 starts for earnings of $465,167.