With a closing running style, she’ll benefit from what looks like will be a hot pace up front. She was a good third in the Grade 2 Demoiselle in December over a sloppy track she moves up if the rains come. You have to go back to last fall for her last win, that in a race restricted to New York-bred horses, and she’s facing significantly more accomplished runners here. With nine starts behind her, she’s run more often than any other filly in the race, and she’s got an even 2-2-2 record. I can’t imagine that she’ll be anywhere near her morning line odds by post time. She’s run once at Churchill Downs, finishing seventh over a sloppy track, which is one more reason to toss her. Most recently third in her first graded stakes attempt, the Grade 3 Fair Grounds Oaks in New Orleans, she compiled a decent record while running in lower-level races. The first of three runners in this race from trainer Brad Cox cost a mere $60,000 as a yearling, and she takes a huge step up in class for this race. She’s going to have to beat me I’m not a fan of horses making a big ship overseas. She’s run exclusively in Dubai and built up an impressive record there, winning her last three races by a combined eight lengths. 1 – Mimi Kakushiīred in Kentucky and sold in Maryland, Mimi Kakushi has never raced in the United States after having been purchased by Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum for $250,000. Odds are the morning line from Churchill Downs. Record follows the following format: Starts-Firsts-Seconds-Thirds.

My thoughts on this year’s Kentucky Oaks are in post-position order. Rain is in the forecast for Friday afternoon in Louisville, so as you handicap, you’ll want to consider horses’ past performances on wet tracks. Honors aside, the Oaks can tend to be more formful than the Derby, with most winners in the last 10 years going off at single-digit odds. Two Derby winners in that period went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic Kentucky Oaks won four Breeders’ Cup Distaffs.

Over the last decade, the winner of the Derby has been voted Eclipse Champion Three-Year-Old Male four times, the same as the number of Oaks winners who were voted Champion Three-Year-Old Female.

Beating the Odds by Kenneth I. Maton