Quiz the Maid goes for sweep

PORTLAND, Ore. - Quiz the Maid will attempt to complete a sweep of the open stakes for 3-year-old fillies at this Portland meet when she takes on five challengers in Saturday's $10,000 Oregon Oaks at 1 1/16 miles.

Quiz the Maid, a Washington-bred daughter of Basket Weave from the barn of Jim Fergason, has already won the six-furlong Lassie Stakes, the six-furlong Ms Stakes, and the one-mile Mt. St. Helens Stakes. If she completes the sweep in the Oaks, Quiz the Maid will duplicate a feat that Back Street Gal accomplished last season en route to horse of the meeting honors.

Fergason, who also trained Back Street Gal, said he feels Quiz the Maid may be a better filly than Back Street Gal, but noted that Quiz the Maid is meeting tougher opposition than Back Street Gal faced in last year's renewal of the Oaks.

So Happy Together and Kya Jo will be Quiz the Maid's most accomplished rivals on Saturday, as both have won Oregon-bred stakes at this meeting.

So Happy Together shipped in from Santa Anita, where she won her maiden at the $28,000 level, to win the one-mile Mary Goldblatt Stakes by more than four lengths here on March 6. Off that race, she was favored in the March 27 Mt. St. Helens, but she failed to fire and wound up fourth, beaten more than seven lengths by Quiz the Maid.

Kya Jo won the OTBA Stallion Stakes at six furlongs here in January and has since been stakes placed three times, finishing second in the Ms. and third in both the Mary Goldblatt and the Mt. St. Helens, in which she finished six lengths behind Quiz the Maid.