Yuugiri cuts back to sprint for first race since May

Yuugiri will make her first start since the Kentucky Oaks at an unexpected distance Friday at Oaklawn Park.

She will cut back to six furlongs in an allowance for fillies and mares who have never won three races. The purse is $106,000 and it’s helped lure stakes winner Verylittlecents and the promising Hot and Sultry.

Yuugiri won Oaklawn’s richest offering for 3-year-old fillies last season when she fought for a neck win in the Grade 3, $600,000 Fantasy over 1 1/16 miles. The effort propelled her to the Kentucky Oaks, a 1 1/8-mile race on May 6 in which she set a quick pace and finished 13th.

“We thought after the Oaks, she just had a long campaign and it was time to give her some time,” said Rodolphe Brisset, who trains Yuugiri for her breeders, Tsunebumi and Sekie Yoshihara. “We’re very happy the way she’s blossomed, or matured. We feel it’s the right time to get her back. We’re hoping for a big year.”

Brisset said the direction Yuugiri’s campaign will take is to be determined. The daughter of Shackleford spent last season racing around two turns, but she’s a winner sprinting. Brisset also noted Yuugiri’s dam, Yuzuru, was a stakes winner on turf. Yuugiri started her career with a maiden special weight win at six furlongs, romping by more than seven lengths in September 2021 at Churchill Downs.

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“If you go back to her first race, it was a pretty impressive race,” Brisset said. “We always thought she was maybe limited distance-wise. We felt like a mile might be the farthest she wants. She dug in very hard in the Fantasy. It was a hard race on her and she came back and made the lead in the Oaks and got tired at the quarter pole.”

Yuugiri on Friday will be racing at one turn for the first time since her career debut.

“It’s a perfect race to come back and get her back to one turn,” Brisset said. “We’re happy to make it back. She’s going to need a race, but we’re happy with the way she’s been training.”

It’s the first step toward what might be an unexpected campaign with Yuugiri.

“Turf is an option,” Brisset said. “A mile on the grass could be something.

“We’ve got plenty of time. We’ll bring her back and get started on Friday, and take it race by race. She’s going to tell us what she wants to do. The goal is to try to win more black type.”

Verylittlecents won last year’s Debutante at Ellis Park. She’s back at Oaklawn, where last February she was second in the Dixie Belle at six furlongs. Joe Talamo has the mount for Randy Patterson and trainer Randy Morse.

Patterson, Morse, and Talamo will also team in the eighth race with stakes winner Connie K, who is a top contender in the $40,000 starter-allowance sprint for fillies and mares bred in Arkansas.

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