Winning Colors is Kapoor's toughest assignment yet
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If ever a horse looked ready to make her stakes debut, it is Kapoor on Monday at Churchill Downs in the Grade 3, $250,000 Winning Colors.
Four-year-old Kapoor began her career during the first part of 2025 with a pair of thirds. Since then, she has been second to none. Returning in January from a layoff, she has gone 3 for 3 with a combined margin of victory of 16 1/2 lengths. Trainer Bill Mott keeps stepping Kapoor up in class. Kapoor keeps stepping up.
“I think she’s won pretty impressively. Bill decided it was time to try a stake,” said Kenny McCarthy, who runs Mott’s Churchill string.
In truth, it remains to be seen whether Kapoor can handle the steepest class hike she’s taken. The top contenders in this six-furlong dirt race, 7-5 morning-line favorite Usha and One Magic Philly, rate considerably higher than anything Kapoor has beaten.
Mott craftily got the filly into two first-level allowance races this winter: Purse earnings in her Tampa Bay Downs comeback win were low enough that she remained qualified for a Gulfstream Park race at the same level. A step up in class to second-level allowance condition last month at Keeneland, and Kapoor won by 6 1/2. She has come back to work smartly at Churchill – not just on paper, but on publicly available video.
“That’s her. She has kind of a good attitude training – sometimes too much so,” McCarthy said.
Kapoor has led at the first call during every start in her winning streak, in great part because she’s so good out of the gate.
“Her first two jumps, she just puts herself there,” McCarthy said.
She might not lead Monday. Spring Dancer, just to her inside in post 4, and Jersey Pearl, drawn widest in an eight-runner field, both have speed and both will go forward. But if Junior Alvarado can settle Kapoor just off the speed while racing in the clear – that could work just fine.
Usha, trained by Bob Baffert, drops in class from a pair of Grade 1s and cuts back to six furlongs, a shorter distance than she’s run in the five starts since Usha transformed from struggling maiden to crack female sprinter. Her peak performance came Dec. 28 in the La Brea, an age- and sex-restricted race in which Usha found a bit of early trouble, wound up farther from the lead than she had ever been, but still won by 5 1/4 lengths.
Reverting to stalking tactics May 2 in the Derby City Distaff, Usha finished third by four lengths after R Disaster shook loose on an easy lead and ran the race of her life. Runner-up Ways and Means would be odds-on were she contesting the Winning Colors.
Bettors inclined to take a short price might do well to recall last year’s Winning Colors. There, the Baffert-trained Hope Road, second in the Derby City Distaff, checked in a well-beaten third as the 4-5 favorite.
While the morning line has Foie Gras the 5-1 third choice over One Magic Philly, the 6-1 fourth choice, One Magic Philly stands a stronger chance.
Foie Gras thrived at Oaklawn Park this winter and early spring, landing a pair of restricted stakes and finishing second in the $250,000 Matron in her three races since current connections bought her at a December digital sale and turned the filly over to trainer Mike Maker.
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One Magic Philly has done good work at Churchill, and her April 25 score in the $200,000 Roxelana probably surpasses the modest 90 Beyer Speed Figure she earned. Racing in blinkers for the first time in eight outings, One Magic Philly traveled sweetly from the start, in hand and attending the pace. She won comfortably with plenty left and might have shown she likes six furlongs as well as the longer one-turn races that have been most prevalent in her career.
“She came out of the race well and is back doing good,” trainer Brendan Walsh said. “She has a good draw with plenty of speed inside her, and if she can reproduce the last race, she should be tough.”
The Winning Colors presents Kapoor with her toughest test. She’s passed every one so far this year.
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