Oaklawn Park: Stopchargingmaria tries to rebound in Fantasy
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE[bc_video_id:320414:]HOT SPRINGS, Ark.– A year ago, the owner-trainer team of Mike Repole and Todd Pletcher won the richest race of the Oaklawn Park meet when Overanalzye accounted for the Arkansas Derby. On Saturday, the pair will attempt to take down the track’s biggest prize for 3-year-old fillies, the Grade 3, $400,000 Fantasy, with Stopchargingmaria.
The Fantasy, which opens the weeklong, $3.3 million Racing Festival of the South, will be run at 1 1/16 miles. It offers its first four finishers 170 preference points for the Kentucky Oaks, to be distributed on a basis of 100-40-20-10.
Whether Stopchargingmaria, the class of the eight-horse Fantasy as a Grade 2 winner of $500,000, advances to the Oaks is to be determined, Pletcher said. He is simply focusing on the task at hand as Stopchargingmaria will be out to rebound from an uncharacteristic fifth-place finish in her 3-year-old debut, which came in the Grade 2 Davona Dale at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 22.
“That’s the only time in her career she hasn’t fired,” Pletcher said.
Stopchargingmaria had a demanding trip in the Davona Dale. Pletcher noted she was hung wide after breaking from the outside post. Stopchargingmaria then found herself farther off the pace than usual and the stakes was won on the front end. The start was Stopchargingmaria’s first since taking the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes at Aqueduct on Nov. 30.
“It seemed like the day she ran at Gulfstream, horses that weren’t involved in the early pace didn’t run well,” Pletcher said, noting his stable had other horses on the card. “The track was speed favoring. I felt like she never got into the flow of the race. She’s trained well since, as you can tell by her work tab.”
Stopchargingmaria, who was flown in Monday from Florida, has three workouts at the Palm Meadows training center since the Davona Dale, including a bullet half-mile on March 23. She will break from post 7 under jockey Ramon Vazquez.
“I expect her to be somewhat forwardly placed,” Pletcher said.
Euphrosyne was placed first in the March 8 Honeybee after Sugar Shock was disqualified to second for impeding the runner-up by a neck in the stretch run. Euphrosyne will break from post 3.
“Hopefully she’ll get a little smoother run to the wire,” said her trainer, Steve Asmussen. “She came out of the Honeybee in good physical shape, and has trained nicely. I think the Honeybee was finally a good indication of her talent. Circumstances, post positions, trips had definitely not been ideal for her previous to that.”
Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount on Euphrosyne, who earlier in the meet finished second in the $100,000 Martha Washington after breaking from the rail, one start after winning her maiden on the front end at Fair Grounds.
Please Explain shipped in from Florida to finish third in the Honeybee, and has remained at Oaklawn since that race. In her prior start, she won the Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
“She would have had to go back to Tampa, and that’s not an easy ship,” said Tom Proctor, who trains Please Explain. “They can only do so many ships, these fillies.”
Please Explain will break from post 6, under apprentice Drayden Van Dyke.
“I don’t think she’ll be on the lead,” Proctor joked of the filly, an established closer.
Please Explain is a daughter of Curlin and a half-sister to a Malibu Moon colt who recently topped a Fasig-Tipton Florida sale of 2-year-olds in training at $1.2 million.
Sugar Shock is a threat to wire the field from her rail post. She also has reason to move forward in what will be her second career start around two turns. Channing Hill has the mount for trainer Doug Anderson.