Restless Rider shortens up in distance to begin comeback in the Raven Run

LEXINGTON, Ky. – You don’t become one of the top two favorites for the Kentucky Oaks by accident. Restless Rider had been so good and so consistent entering the filly classic that she was 4-1 on the Churchill Downs toteboard, second choice among a field of 14.

And then the bottom dropped out.

Restless Rider finished 13th of 14 in the May 3 Oaks, ahead of only a filly who fell shortly after the start, Positive Spirit, and 34 lengths behind the winner, Serengeti Empress. The effort was so dreadful that there had to be some sort of explanation for it – but it seems that none was forthcoming.

“She got away really bad,” said Kenny McPeek, who trains Restless Rider for Fern Circle Stables and Three Chimneys Farm, “and it pretty much got worse from there. What could go wrong did go wrong.”

Duly regrouped in the six-plus months that have passed, Restless Rider will make her eagerly awaited return to action Saturday at Keeneland in the Grade 2, $250,000 Raven Run. The seven-furlong race represents a fresh start and a turn-back in distance for the 3-year-old filly, who won the Alcibiades and finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and Ashland, all of them Grade 1 races around two turns. Overall, she has been first or second in seven of eight starts.

“We really don’t have a major excuse for the Oaks,” said McPeek. “We decided to give her a long break and bring her back later in the year. We’d been worried about a little fever she’d had a couple weeks or so before the Oaks, but I really didn’t think it was anything and we actually still don’t know.”

After lengthy examination during her down time at Three Chimneys and WinStar Farm, Restless Rider resumed training over the summer and shows eight breezes since late August leading into the Raven Run.

“She acts like she’s fast enough to win going short, and actually she always has been,” said McPeek. “We’ll see how she does and where this takes us.”

Restless Rider was one of at least nine 3-year-old fillies expected when entries for the 21st Raven Run are drawn Wednesday. Royal Charlotte, the Chad Brown-trained filly who has won five of six starts, is foremost among the opposition.

The Raven Run was won last year by Shamrock Rose, who wheeled back two weeks later to upset the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill.