Kaboom Baby moving up Arkansas-bred earnings list

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Kaboom Baby can go over $500,000 in career earnings with a victory in Sunday’s eighth race at Oaklawn Park. She likely will go favored in the six-furlong allowance for Arkansas-bred fillies and mares.

Kaboom Baby, who enters with earnings of $451,959, would pick up $85,800 were she to win the $143,000 race. It would lift the 6-year-old mare’s bankroll to $537,759, just behind the $539,894 earned by The Mary Rose, who leads all female Arkansas-breds in earnings. Connie K, who faces Kaboom Baby on Sunday, is third on the list with $402,885. The statistics were provided by the Arkansas Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Horsemen’s Association.

“We were fortunate to have this race come up,” said Ernie Witt II, who trains Kaboom Baby. “There’s only so many races for the real good Arkansas-bred fillies and mares – only so many opportunities in one meet. We’re fortunate this race came up and that we have two stakes races.”

Kaboom Baby has made the most of the offerings in her home state, finishing third or better in 13 of her 16 starts at Oaklawn. She won last year’s $150,000 Natural State Breeders’ Stakes in May and was second last March in the track’s $150,000 Downthedustyroad.

The Downthedustyroad will be renewed March 2 at Oaklawn, and it very likely could be the next stop for Kaboom Baby. But the first order of business comes Sunday, said Witt, who trains the daughter of Hightail for her breeder, Tracy Selby.

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Kaboom Baby will be making her second start since May in the nine-horse field. In her return Jan. 13, she was second to the talented Kantex at this level and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 75, the best last-race Beyer in Sunday’s field. Kantex was to have run back against open company in a Saturday allowance.

“Her first race back is usually not her best race, so I was very pleasantly surprised the way she ran and the number that she got, which is encouraging for this race,” Witt said. “It helps that we don’t have to face the winner of the last race. But she’s doing real good. We’re very pleased with the way she ran off the shelf.”

Luis Quinonez has the mount from post 3.

“If there’s a ton of speed, she can lay back and make a run,” Witt said. “At the same time, if there’s not a lot of pace, she can lay closer. In that way, she’s very versatile.”

Connie K, a past winner of the Downthedustyroad, figures to set the fractions. She exits the same race as Kaboom Baby, and after making the pace finished fourth. It was the second start of the year for Connie K, who has a chance to slip away Sunday when she breaks from post 7 under Emmanuel Esquivel.

Trainer Randy Morse, who is winning races at a 21 percent clip, co-bred and co-owns Connie K with Randy Patterson.

◗ The ninth race is a second-level allowance route for fillies and mares that drew stakes winners One More Kelly, Stoic Luna, and Lover Girl.

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