Taken by the Wind plans one more start before Kentucky Oaks
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The 3-year-old filly Taken by the Wind has started her career with three wins, the most recent Saturday in the Silverbulletday Stakes. Her trainer, Kenny McPeek, sees Taken by the Wind as a Kentucky Oaks horse, and McPeek believes she needs only one more race before the Oaks.
That race could come at Fair Grounds, in the Fair Grounds Oaks on March 21; at Oaklawn, in the Fantasy Stakes on March 27; or at Keeneland, in the Ashland on the first weekend in April.
Taken by the Wind set a radically slow pace in the Silverbulletday, turned back a challenge from Luv Your Neighbor, and held clear rail-running odds-on favorite Atropa to win by a neck. Her Beyer Speed Figure came back an 80, better than the 72 she got winning the Pocahontas in September and the 63 from her debut win in a restricted Saratoga maiden sprint.
McPeek wanted to run Taken by the Wind in the Alcibiades in October at Keeneland, but the filly wound up on the vet’s list and, McPeek said, could not work her way off it despite undergoing a CT scan and a PET scan that revealed no compromising problems.
“We never found anything wrong with her,” McPeek said.
Based at Fair Grounds after leaving Kentucky, Taken by the Wind was shipped to Oaklawn for a published workout Dec. 29. Because Louisiana tracks don’t operate under the jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), Taken by the Wind couldn’t be removed from the HISA vet’s list by working at Fair Grounds, and McPeek wanted to keep open the option of running the filly in the Martha Washington on Jan. 31 at Oaklawn.
Something similar could transpire with the 3-year-old colt Blackout Time, unraced since finishing second in the Breeders’ Futurity in October at Keeneland. Blackout Time shipped to Del Mar to start in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but regulatory veterinarians, voicing concern about the colt’s ankles, ordered the horse scratched. That put Blackout Time on the HISA vet’s list until he works satisfactory at a track under HISA jurisdiction.
“We couldn’t find anything wrong with him, either,” McPeek said.
Blackout Time, a 9 3/4-length maiden winner at Ellis Park, breezed a quarter-mile in company this weekend at Fair Grounds and next weekend will have a workout long enough to make the official tab. McPeek said he hopes to have Blackout Time ready to race in early March.
And McPeek has lost no faith in the Fair Grounds-based 3-year-old Liberty National, despite the colt’s second-place finish Dec. 20 as the heavy favorite in the Gun Runner Stakes. Liberty National has gotten back onto a regular work pattern and runs Feb. 14 in the Risen Star.
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