Lovely Ride looking strong for Pippin Stakes
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Horses do well in Hot Springs.
It’s something the late Oaklawn Park kingpin Bob Holthus often said, noting so many respond favorably to the environment of fresh mountain air and natural spring water.
Lovely Ride appears to be one such horse. She has been thriving at Oaklawn and on Saturday will attempt to win her second stakes race of the young meet in the $150,000 Pippin.
The 1 1/16-mile race is for fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up. It has drawn a field of 10, including defending winner Coach, Grade 3 winner Will’s Secret, and Chilean import Le Da Vida.
Lovely Ride won last month’s $150,000 Mistletoe at Oaklawn over those rivals, wiring the field for a 3 1/2-length victory. It was a gratifying win as one race prior she had finished an uncharacteristic 12th in the Grade 3 Trillium at Woodbine. The start came in August.
“After the Woodbine race, she wasn’t training well and just really went the wrong way on us,” trainer Robertino Diodoro said. “We laid her off a little bit and she started coming back the right way. Once we got her over here to Hot Springs, she turned the corner on us. She came back around the way we wanted her to.”
Diodoro was one of the first trainers to set up shop ahead of the start of the new meet at Oaklawn, and Lovely Ride recorded a series of sharp local works leading into the Mistletoe. She’s continued the trend up to the Pippin. Her latest move was a half-mile in 47 seconds, on a good track Dec. 30. It was the fastest of 41 works at the distance that morning at Oaklawn.
“She went into the last race really well and came out of it even better,” Diodoro said. “That’s what’s kind of got me excited. It’s a little tougher race, but I think she’s better going into this one than her last one, and that might make up for the tougher race.”
Lovely Ride is a three-time stakes winner. She was a private purchase last winter by John Holleman, Flying P Stable, and Larry Nafe. The daughter of Candy Ride and the Grade 2-winning mare Lovely Lil will break from post 3 under Cristian Torres.
“She likes to be on the lead, but she’ll sit off of it,” Diodoro said. “I liked the way she relaxed on the lead last time, especially coming off the layoff. I thought she ran great, galloped out good after the race.”
Coach raced in second throughout the Mistletoe. Last year, she was a three-length winner of the Pippin.
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“Hopefully, she can get it done again,” said Brad Cox, who trains Coach for Kueber Racing.
Joe Talamo has the mount from post 7.
Will’s Secret was third in the Mistletoe. It was run at a mile, and she now returns to the distance of her most significant win, the Grade 3 Honeybee. That came in 2021 at Oaklawn, and she went on to run third in the Kentucky Oaks.
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