Oaklawn Park notes: Fantasy next for Euphrosyne, Please Explain

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Euphrosyne and Please Explain are both candidates for next month’s Grade 3, $400,000 Fantasy for 3-year-old fillies at Oaklawn, according to their respective trainers, Steve Asmussen and Tom Proctor. Both horses exit the track’s Grade 3, $150,000 Honeybee on March 8.

Sugar Shock finished first by a neck in the race, but was disqualified and placed second after drifting in the stretch and impeding Euphrosyne, who was placed first. Please Explain, meanwhile, closed from last for third, beaten a length on the heels of her win in the $66,000 Suncoast at Tampa Bay Downs.

Asmussen said Euphrosyne is now on schedule for the Fantasy, a 1 1/16-mile race April 5.

“She got a good trip the other day, excluding the last sixteenth of a mile,” he said. “She ran a good race. She came out of it in good shape and hopefully we’ll go in the Fantasy.”

Please Explain, who shipped to Oaklawn from Florida for the Honeybee, has remained in town to train locally for the Fantasy, Proctor said.

“The filly looked like she came out of the race good,” Proctor said. “She’ll probably run in the Fantasy.”

Sugar Shock and Euphrosyne earned Beyer Speed Figures of 85 for the Honeybee. The Fantasy offers its first four finishers preference points for the Kentucky Oaks on a system administered by Churchill Downs.

◗ Champion Will Take Charge breezed a half-mile in 48.80 seconds during the first set at Oaklawn on Tuesday, with clockers getting his final quarter in 23.80. The move was his first since running second in the Santa Anita Handicap. Will Take Charge is being pointed to the Grade 2, $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap on April 12, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said.

◗ Allen Aldrich, a co-owner of champion She’s a Tiger, went to $7,000 to purchase a Kentucky Derby-Kentucky Oaks box at a benefit auction for the Arkansas Race Track Chaplaincy last Friday. The item was the top seller during the fundraising event.