Paris Lights shines in Oaks
It isn’t often that a horse’s first stakes experience occurs in a G1 race. It is even less often that the experience is a successful one. In Saturday’s Coaching Club American Oaks, however, Paris Lights – who was exiting an allowance win three weeks ago at Churchill Downs – showed she was ready to make the jump to graded company, out-finishing Crystal Ball by a head after a stretch-long duel.
“She was very game,” winning trainer Bill Mott said on the America’s Best Racing telecast. “I was very pleased with how professional she was in only her fourth race. She got a class test today and she passed.”
Crystal Ball lost little in defeat. The West Coast shipper was also making her first stakes (and only third career) start, having scored a 6¼-length maiden win at Santa Anita last month. Favored Tonalist’s Shape, racing with blinkers for the first time, was rank early after being held back and was never in serious contention, finishing fourth in the field of five sophomore fillies.
Paris Lights and probably Crystal Ball earned enough points to qualify for the Kentucky Oaks on Sept. 4. Mott indicated he would also consider the Alabama Stakes (Aug. 15) as a next start for his Coaching Club winner.
Swiss Skydiver remains at the top of the 3-yearold filly division despite (or perhaps because of) her game second versus males in the Blue Grass. Without Swiss Skydiver and Gamine in the field, Speech – a runnerup in her four most recent races – cruised to a threelength victory in the Ashland Stakes, marking her as a possible filly to be reckoned with going forward.
Three-year- old male update
The Coaching Club American Oaks wasn’t the only major race during the first days of the meet that went to a non-stakes-winner. In the 1 1/8-mile Peter
Pan Stakes on opening day, Country Grammer, whose lone victory had been in a maiden special last November, won the bob over fellow maiden winner Caracaro. The win was worth 50 qualifying points and virtually assured the son of Tonalist of a stall in the Derby starting gate on Sept. 5.
Saturday at Monmouth Park, Authentic showed he could win at a mile and an eighth, if only by a nose, by holding off the fierce late rush of Ny Traffic in the $1 million Haskell Stakes. Authentic, Ny Traffic and third-place Haskell finisher Dr Post had already earned enough points to qualify for the Derby.
An Into Mischief exacta Given the proven record of Into Mischief as a sire of 2-year- olds, one might have thought his daughters Make Mischief (16-1) and Dayoutoftheoffice (191) would have been more heavily backed in Thursday’s Schuylerville Stakes. After all, Into Mischief was the leading sire of 2-yearolds by progeny earnings in 2016, 2018 and 2019, and is on top again in 2020.
The race broke wide open when 1-2 favorite Beautiful Memories stumbled badly soon after the start and was eventually pulled up and walked off. In the meantime, Make Mischief and Dayoutoftheoffice were battling for the lead, with the latter soon taking over and drawing off to win by a half- dozen lengths. A $2 exacta play on the two Into Mischief fillies was worth a generous $277.