HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – A Breeders’ Cup Distaff berth is up for grabs Saturday, when champion Nitrogen leads a competitive cast of fillies and mares in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park. The race has been the spring objective for the 122-pound highweight. Nitrogen is among nine set to start in the 1 1/16-mile offering that, for the first time, carries the distinction of being a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race. The Apple Blossom also continues the Racing Festival of the South and is being showcased on a 12-race card that includes the Grade 3, $500,000 Count Fleet. The infield is scheduled to be open on an afternoon forecast to be sunny, with temperatures in the low 80s. Nitrogen arrived from Florida earlier in the meet with Saturday’s card circled on her calendar. “I think she’s sitting on ready,” trainer Mark Casse said. :: Live racing action at Oaklawn Park! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. She will meet fellow graded stakes winners Majestic Oops, Regaled, Dazzling Move, Om N Joy, Five G, and Claret Beret, as well as multiple stakes winner Blue Fire and two-time overnight stakes winner Nerazurri. “It’s a tough race,” said Dan Ward, who trains Grade 2 Azeri winner Majestic Oops. “It’s going to set up good [for us] because there’s more speed than there was in the last race, it looks like.” An honest pace also would serve the cause of Nitrogen. She won her 4-year-old debut from a stalking position Feb. 7 at Oaklawn, when she captured the Grade 3 Bayakoa with a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 97. Nitrogen came into the race after an ice storm had shut down training for nine days, but she was strong through the stretch for a 2 3/4-length win over Nerazurri. Nitrogen returned last out and was third in the Azeri, which was run over a sealed sloppy track on March 7. She finished 1 3/4 lengths back under regular rider Jose Ortiz, who will be back aboard Saturday. “The last race was kind of weird,” Casse said. “I was talking with Jose about it the other day at Keeneland, and he said, ‘It was crazy. You told me the first time she ran out there she may get tired, but she wouldn’t take a deep breath, and in the second race, she was exhausted.’ “His thought was she struggled with the track some, so I think maybe it was a little sticky. And she’s a big, big horse. Every slop is different. I kind of prefer it to be fast, just so we know where we’re at.” Nitrogen will break from the rail for breeder and owner D J Stable. “The draw is not perfect, but I think she was in the one-hole in the Breeders’ Cup,” Casse said of a runner-up finish in last year’s Distaff. Casse also will saddle Nerazurri, who has come to hand over the course of the meet at Oaklawn. She’s 3 for 4 in Hot Springs, with her lone loss coming to Nitrogen. “She’s a nice horse in her own right,” Casse said. “I would expect her to run well. It looks like there’s a fair amount of speed, her being part of it, so she’s going to be up close to the pace.” Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. looks for the same from Dazzling Move, who is returning to two turns after a pair of one-turn starts. The barn also sends out Claret Beret, a five-length winner of the Grade 3 Royal Delta last out at Gulfstream Park. “Dazzling Move has speed to go to the lead, and Claret Beret is a horse that can stalk,” Joseph said. “She can sit a few lengths off the pace. Hopefully, Dazzling Move is on the lead and hopefully, Claret Beret is not too far back, just off the pace, and we’ll see how the race develops.” Claret Beret, who has won at this distance at Oaklawn, was a private purchase by Miller Racing. “She won well last time,” Joseph said. “That’s the first time we had run her two turns because she had won for us her first start going a mile, then she ran well going seven-eighths, so we stayed at seven-eighths. “We stretched her back out to two turns and we thought she was very impressive and she deserves a shot in this race. She seems to have done better since the last race. We feel like if everything goes well the rest of the week, she has a very good chance to win it.” The distance of the Apple Blossom was the appeal for Dazzling Move. “She’s run second in a Grade 1 already,” Joseph said. “We like feel a mile and a sixteenth is going to be a little bit better for her, because most of the Grade 1s are a mile and an eighth and that stretches her a little.” Majestic Oops has won both of her starts at the meet, one at six furlongs in the American Beauty and the other at 1 1/16 miles in the Azeri. She will break from post 2 under Francisco Arrieta. “He really knows how to get her to settle and finish, and that’s the key,” Ward said. Om N Joy is a half-sister to Vodka Vodka, who won the $250,000 Sunland Park Stakes last week for her trainer, Aggie Ordonez, and her jockey, Kent Desormeaux. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.