Longines Kentucky Oaks (Grade 1)

EVERYBODY celebrates a big win in their own way. Most whoop it up, hug, high-five, scream themselves hoarse, bask in the moment and toast the victory into the wee hours of the night after a meal at a place like Jeff Ruby’s, Vincenzo’s, Jack Fry’s, Proof On Main or Seviche if you’re in Louisville.

If you’re D. Wayne Lukas, the 86-year-old Hall of Fame trainer who has won every important race in America by doing it his own way, you do it a bit different.

“We usually go to Wendy’s,” Lukas said when asked how he and wife planned to celebrate Secret Oath’s victory in the 148th Longines Kentucky Oaks last Friday. “We get the chili. And then we get the double cheeseburger. And Laurie cooks up a little pasta and we take the double cheeseburger and break it up into the chili. And that’s it.”

Whether Lukas and his wife followed that unorthodox celebratory plan or not didn’t matter much in the wake of Secret Oath’s professional victory in the Oaks. Rob and Stacy Mitchell’s Secret Oath, a daughter of Arrogate they bred and foaled at their 90-acre Briland Farm in Lexington, won the nine-furlong Oaks by two lengths over 2/1 favourite and Ashland Stakes winner Nest, with Santa Anita Oaks winner Desert Dawn third and last year’s champion two-year-old filly Echo Zulu fourth.

Secret Oath, the toast of the Oaklawn Park meeting this winter and spring, improved to five-for-eight in her career and gave her connections reason to start against males in next weekend’s Grade 1 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

“I thought the race unfolded pretty much like what we expected,” Lukas said of Secret Oath’s closing bid.

“Being in the one-hole, we didn’t have a lot of options. But down the backside, I told Luis [Saez] not to get too creative on the turn and make his move if he was going to get in position on the backside.

“Of course, when he started to do that, I felt pretty good because I thought once he got to him, like he did, she accelerated. She breaks their heart when she goes by them.”

The 4/1 co-third choice, Secret Oath bounced back in the Oaks following a rough-trip third against males in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby.

The Mitchells and Lukas didn’t plan to run Secret Oath in the Kentucky Derby off that race, preferring the Arkansas Derby to Oaklawn’s Fantasy Stakes because of its purse, Grade 1 status and nine-furlong distance.

“That was always our goal; our goal was to get in the Oaks,” Rob Mitchell said. “But then the Fantasy is also a Grade 3. And as a farm who breeds their own stock, well, I’ve already had a Grade 3-winning mare. If the Fantasy were Grade 2, I might have gone. Or Grade 1, we might have gone. But you have the Arkansas Derby which is a Grade 1 at $1.25 million.”

Lukas said Secret Oath was “maybe a probable-plus” Wednesday morning for the Preakness and by the afternoon confirmed to the Maryland Jockey Club’s racing office that she was definite.

“Let’s put it this way: The Derby horses pretty much all had a hard race. Her race was not hard on her,” Lukas said. “Now, you sit back and say, ‘Epicenter is going to be the favorite. Chad Brown is putting that other horse (Wood Memorial runner-up Early Voting) in.’

“What I always did on those, is I list all the horses going and say, ‘Can I beat this one?’ Yes. ‘Can I beat that one?’ Maybe. Go right down the line.”

One three-year-old Lukas won’t have to contend with in Baltimore is Rich Strike, who will bypass the second jewel of the Triple Crown and wait for the June 11th Belmont Stakes.

“After much discussion and consideration with my trainer, Eric Reed, and a few others, we are going to stay with our plan of what’s best for Ritchie is what’s best for our group, and pass on running in the Preakness, and point toward the Belmont,” Dawson said in a statement.

THE depth of the North American three-year-old filly division was on full display on Oaks Day last Friday, not only in the headliner but in an allowance early on the card and in the Grade 2 Eight Belles.

Brad Cox, who sent out three unplaced runners in the Kentucky Derby and another in the Kentucky Oaks, won both of those races with fillies who figure to factor in spots down the road.

Godolphin homebred Matareya appears headed for a potential showdown with Echo Zulu in the Grade 1 Acorn on Belmont Stakes Day, June 11th, after her decisive two and a quarter-length victory over Pretty Birdie in the Eight Belles.

The daughter of Pioneerof The Nile has won her last three by 16 lengths. Albaugh Family Stable’s Juju’s Map made her first start since finishing second to Echo Zulu in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and defeated older fillies and mares in a 1 1/16-mile allowance worth $134,000 early on the card.

“The Acorn’s going to be interesting five weeks from now,” Cox said. “Both are good fillies. (Matareya) is probably going to do her best going around one turn. Juju’s Map definitely can handle two turns. At some point, they’re going to sort themselves out, and if they meet up in the Acorn, I don’t know.”

Turf stakes

Chad Brown kicked off his big weekend with the first of two 1-2 finishes in turf stakes when Bleecker Street stayed perfect in six starts with a half-length win over stablemate Fluffy Socks in the Grade 3 Modesty Stakes going nine furlongs.

Shedaresthedevil, winner of the pandemic-delayed Kentucky Oaks in 2020, wasn’t so fortunate keeping her unbeaten mark intact in the Grade 1 La Troienne. She finished second at 4/5 to Pauline’s Pearl in the $750,000 La Troienne at 1 1/16 miles, her first loss in Louisville in six starts.

Olympiad did stay perfect, at least for the year, with his third straight graded stakes triumph in the $500,000 Grade 2 Alysheba for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and owners Grandview Equine, Cheyenne Stable and LNJ Foxwoods.

The four-year-old son of Speightstown topped Grade 1 winner Happy Saver by two and a half lengths to add the Alysheba to prior victories in the Grade 3 Mineshaft and Grade 2 New Orleans Classic, both at Fair Grounds.