She's Our Annie has special look

A bay 3-year-old filly by Medaglia d'Oro is expected to start on Saturday at Fair Grounds. She has some white on her head, and is out of a mare by the stallion Roar. Her breeder entered her in a Keeneland sale, but instead wound up taking her home and racing her with success.

Those characteristics all apply to a horse named Rachel Alexandra, but Rachel is not the horse in question here. This is She's Our Annie, who may be favored to win the $60,000 Esplanade on Saturday, one of nine stakes on the Fair Grounds card.

She's Our Annie has a long road to go before she could be said to bear more than superficial resemblance to Rachel Alexandra, but this filly can run, too. Since finishing third in her career debut last January at Oaklawn, She's Our Annie has won four races in a row, including two minor stakes.

"She's bred exactly like Rachel Alexandra," said Jinks Fires, who trains She's Our Annie for the Grubes family of Indiana, who bred She's Our Annie and race her under the name Destiny Oaks. "She's got a little size to her. She's not as big as Rachel, but they look a lot alike.

Fires said that former jockey Patti Cooksey "saw her walking down the road one day, and hollered out, 'She looks just like Rachel.' "

She's Our Annie was entered in the Keeneland September yearling sale of 2007, but failed to meet a $47,000 reserve. To Fires, the filly looked good from her very first work.

"Since the first day I breezed her, she looked very talented," he said.

She's Our Annie has excellent speed, and has won her four races by a combined 15 lengths. But her Achilles heel, so to speak, is her feet. Foot problems kept her out of action between March and November, and she exited her comeback victory at Churchill with an abscess. She's Our Annie gets her hooves soaked daily in Epsom salts, and Fires said the most recent foot problem is behind her.

"I feel good about her right now," Fires said.

She's Our Annie ships Thursday from Oaklawn to Fair Grounds. If things go her way, Fires plans to sprint her one more time - on opening day of the Oaklawn meet - before stretching She's Our Annie out to two turns. If that works, she and her double - Rachel Alexandra - could come face to face in a stakes race sometime in 2010.