Oaklawn patron wins Oaks with longshot filly
The man who runs a parking lot at Oaklawn Park got valet service Friday and celebrated his biggest victory as a thoroughbred owner.
She dares the devil, owned by Staton Flurry, of Hot Springs, outdueled Swiss Skydiver down the stretch in a battle of Daredevil fillies that decided the 146th Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs. Paying $32.20 to win, She dares the devil scored the second Oaks victory for jockey Florent Geroux and trainer Brad Cox, a Louisville, Ky., native whose Monomoy Girl, the 2018 Oaks winner, won the Grade 1 La Troienne the race before.
“It’s my first Grade 1 win as a horse owner,” said Flurry, who linked up with Cox while racing in New Orleans just out of college. “Another one off the bucket list.”
Cox said, “This is why you wake up every morning to get to win races like this. … There were some tough fillies in the Oaks this year with
Swiss Skydiver and (show horse) Gamine. We are so thrilled to win a race like the Oaks, again, in our backyard. … These are the days you dream of.”
Winning by 1 1/2 lengths and clocking nine furlongs in a stakes record 1:48.28, Shedaresthedevil scored her third victory in a row and third graded stakes triumph. From an original purse of $1.25 million, the winner’s share of
$744,000 boosted her earnings to
$1,245,768 with a 10-5-2-2 record. Shedaresthedevil started her
3-year-old campaign with Cox after winning in Kentucky last year for trainer Norm Casse and later training in California under Simon Callaghan. Buying 35 percent, Flurry helped swing a deal of $280,000 for Shedaresthedevil last November at a horse sale in Lexington, Ky. Along with original owner Qatar Racing Ltd., Autry Lowry, a fire captain from Bossier City, La., bought an interest in the filly in part, he said, because he owned a share of the sire, Daredevil.
A close second to new stablemate Bonny South in a Feb. 15 optional claiming race at Oaklawn, Shedaresthedevil took the Grade 3 Honeybee in her next start March 7 with a patient ride from Joe Talamo, whose postrace thoughts now seem prophetic: “I don’t think she’s even peaked yet. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of her.”
Shedaresthedevil finished a distant third in the Grade 3 Fantasy May 1 at Oaklawn, won by Swiss Skydiver. Although she won the Grade 3 Indiana Oaks and one other race before Friday, the filly was rated a cut below Grade 1 winners Swiss Skydiver, Gamine and Speech.
So it was something of a surprise to see Shedaresthedevil yapping at the heels of even-money favorite Gamine rounding the first turn of the Oaks. But not to Cox, who said “when she breezed with Monomoy Girl a couple weeks ago, we knew how well she was training.”
Gamine, a multiple Grade 1 winner in New York but here going nine furlongs the first time, took the field through six furlongs in 1:12.12 with Shedaresthedevil flanked outside and Swiss Skydiver tracking third on the fence. Shedaresthedevil drew even at the top of the stretch and collared Gamine while Swiss Skydiver swung outside for a late surge that came up short.
“That other filly (Shedaresthedevil) has been training extremely well,” said Swiss Skydiver’s trainer, Ken McPeek. Although Swiss Skydiver shunned going up the rail near the half-mile pole and later came wide, jockey Tyler Gaffalione “rode her good. That’s horse racing. There’s no guarantees. … I actually wasn’t as worried about Gamine as I was another filly running a bang-up race. That’s what happened.”
Geroux said the winner benefited from “a great trip. She broke very sharp and I was able to stalk Gamine all the way. That was the plan, but sometimes plans don’t always work out. … The only question was whether or not I was going to be able to run her down.”
Flurry said after the race that Shedaresthedevil probably will not race in November’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland, which Monomoy Girl hopes to win for the second time in three years. “That wouldn’t be fair to Brad,” said Flurry, whose grass star Mr. Misunderstood, scratched from a Churchill Downs stake Thursday that came off the turf, also is trained by Cox.
Instead, the Oaks winner may receive a freshening, Flurry said, with the 2021 Oaklawn meeting a long-range target. Oaklawn’s Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap, worth $1 million next year, becomes “my new bucket-list item,” Flurry said.