Plum Pretty will run in Hollywood Oaks

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty will start in Saturday’s $150,000 Hollywood Oaks at Hollywood Park, trainer Bob Baffert confirmed on race morning.

“She runs,” Baffert wrote in a text.

But the Oaks field was reduced to four when Big Tiz, the runner-up in the Grade 3 Railbird Stakes, was withdrawn because of an injury. Trainer Mark Glatt declined to state the nature of the injury on Saturday but said that Big Tiz would likely to return to racing by the end of the year.

Baffert said on Thursday that he was taking a cautious approach to Plum Pretty’s participation in the Grade 2 Hollywood Oaks after she was ill for a brief time earlier this week. Plum Pretty was found to have an elevated temperature on Monday, which kept her from being flown to New York for Saturday’s Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park.

By Tuesday, Plum Pretty’s condition had improved and she was entered in the Hollywood Oaks on Wednesday. The Oaks is run over 1 1/16 miles and has a field of five, including Zazu, who was third in the Kentucky Oaks.