Maximum Offer proves uncatchable in Indiana Oaks

Maximum Offer, her connections' pre-race plans notwithstanding, set a slow pace and could not be caught in the Indiana Oaks on Saturday at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

Luis Saez rode the winner for owners Baccari Racing Stable, Alfred Riccio, and Robert Cotrone, and trainer Kenny McPeek, who, with his third tally in this race, became the winning-most Indiana Oaks trainer.

With Mizumi an early scratch, only five ran in the Grade 3, $200,000 Indiana Oaks, and on paper, Maximum Offer looked like the lone front-runner. Nonetheless, Saez in a televised post-race interview said he made the front by default.

“Today she broke like a bullet,” Saez said, and with his filly easily in front Saez abandoned Plan A. “Have a target, follow somebody.”

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Prom Queen, the 6-5 favorite, followed Maximum Offer more closely than the three others, but never really applied serious pressure through very slow splits of 24.74 and 48.95. Prom Queen made a bid at the three-furlong marker and got within a neck of Maximum Offer at the five-sixteenths, but it was the filly following her, second choice Betty’s Pearl, who offered the more serious challenge. 

At the three-sixteenths pole, the top of the stretch, stacked four paths wide, Betty’s Pearl took the measure of Prom Queen inside her and took aim at Maximum Offer, but Saez had a mount with plenty in the tank.

“I felt like I had the horse to fight anyone off. She came into the stretch a pretty fresh filly,” he said.

Maximum Offer took a one-length lead to the stretch call and finished better than any of her rivals, drawing away to a 2 1/2-length score. A fading Betty’s Pearl held second by a neck over Nahla, Prom Queen’s Brad Cox-trained stablemate, longest shot in the field at 8-1. 

Prom Queen ran her worst race of the year, beating only Star Actress while 1 3/4 lengths behind Nahla. 

Maximum Offer ran 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:42.65 and paid $13.

Fourth in the Martha Washington at Oaklawn, a distant fifth in the Fair Grounds Oaks, and last of five, beaten more than 17 lengths, in the Grade 1 Acorn last month, Maximum Offer won her first stakes in her third career victory. The filly is by Maxfield out of No Better Terms, by Pure Prize, and McPeek mentioned the Grade 1 Cotillion as a goal. If Maximum Offer shakes loose on an easy lead, she could be dangerous.

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