Joyful Victory, Her Smile tour the slop at Churchill

Joyful Victory easily surpassed her older stablemate in Sunday’s work (Reed Palmer Photography/Churchill Downs)

Kentucky Oaks (G1) hopeful JOYFUL VICTORY (Tapit) skipped over the wet track
at Churchill Downs Sunday morning, turning in a bullet five-work in :59 1/5. It
was the fastest work at the distance by a full second.

The move was accomplished over a “sloppy” oval following some heavy rains
earlier Sunday morning when a storm cell bringing thunder and lightning with it
moved through the Louisville area.

Joyful Victory worked in company with five-year-old stablemate and Grade 2
winner Payton d’Oro (Medaglia d’Oro), who accomplished the move in 1:00 3/5 in
advance of a possible start in Friday’s La Troienne S. (G2). The three-year-old
lass turned in split times of :11, :22, :34 1/5, :46 2/5 and :59 1/5 under
jockey Gabriel Saez before galloping out six furlongs in 1:13 4/5. The gray
filly finished up about seven lengths in front of her stablemate.

“She really did well,” trainer Larry Jones said. “We put the other horse out
there to kind of make sure that she knew someone was around because she’ll get
to loafing a little bit coming down the lane. She just kind of galloped away
from the other horse and the other horse is a nice horse, she won the Black-Eyed
Susan (G2) two years ago. The other horse can run. (Joyful Victory) made it look
like she’s about ready.”

Joyful Victory will be one of the favorites in Run for the Lilies (Alex Evers/EquiSport Photos)

“This filly just did it easy,” he said. “He never asked her for anything. It
was a good work. It’s what we wanted. We set out to go in :59, knowing that the
track could play a little different. When he got her in :59 1/5, that’s as good
as we could hope out of Gabriel and it was all well.”

Joyful Victory comes into the Oaks following victories in the Fantasy S. (G2)
and Honeybee S. (G3) at Oaklawn Park. Both of those came on fast tracks, and
though she’s never raced on an off-track, Jones said she seems to enjoy the wet
going.

“She’s done very well on this,” he said. “Everybody knows that saying that
you can’t bet against a gray in the mud. If it was to rain Friday — we’re not
going out of our way and praying for rain — but if it rains we’re not going to
be afraid to go out there.”

The typically upbeat trainer was beaming as his staff gave Joyful Victory a
bath.

“We just wanted a good work in her because the work last week was on the same
kind of a track,” he said. “We knew that she had done enough in the Fantasy; we
should be ready. So the last work was just more or less a leg-stretcher and to
let her kind of get accustomed to the surface here. We were kind of hoping for a
dry track today, but we’re also seeing rain in the forecast for Friday, so we’re
not afraid to go out and let her do something over it, and she handled it really
well.”

Celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s newest equine acquisition HER SMILE (Include) was
put through a four-furlong team drill Sunday morning following the renovation
break at Churchill Downs and registered a :50 2/5 clocking for her efforts.

Her Smile took on Ibboyee in her final preparations for a possible start in the Oaks (Reed Palmer Photography/Churchill Downs)

“She skipped right over it (the wet track),” Gomez said back at trainer Todd
Pletcher’s barn. “It didn’t seem to bother her at all. I think it (the work) was
just what they were after.”

Pletcher had indicated earlier that he still was not sure he was going to
enter the Virginia-bred in the Oaks, noting he’d have to discuss that
possibility with her owner, who purchased the filly privately after her
runner-up finish in the Comely S. (G3) at Aqueduct on April 9. The Eclipse
Award-winning conditioner was still holding out that option on Sunday.

“I’m going to talk to Bobby today and we’ll see,” he said.

Plum Pretty dominated the Sunland Oaks by 25 lengths last out (Alex Evers/EquiSport Photos)

PLUM PRETTY (Medaglia d’Oro) galloped 1 1/2 miles during the period reserved
for Oaks and Kentucky Derby (G1) horses on Sunday. Trainer Bob Baffert said the
filly will breeze at 8:30 a.m. (EDT) Monday morning following the renovation
break. Martin Garcia will ride the filly in the Kentucky Oaks.

Stakes victress HOLY HEAVENS (Holy Bull) “two-minute licked” a mile during
the Oaks-Derby training session on Sunday. “Her energy is good,” said jockey
Kent Desormeaux, who was aboard for the exercise. “She’s wide-eyed, looks happy.
A happy horse is a fast horse.”

Trainer Benard Chatters also has noticed that Holy Heavens seems more content
in Louisville. “We’re real happy with her progress,” he said. “She’s put on
probably 40 pounds since we’ve been here and we’ve been here two weeks.”

The trainer’s plan for Holy Heavens the remainder of this week is simply to
“take it easy and make her feel good.”

Holy Heavens ran a two-minute mile on Sunday (Matt Wooley/EquiSport Photos)

Robby Albarado, who rode Bouquet Booth for the first time to a fourth-place
finish in the Ashland S. (G1) last month at Keeneland, has the Oaks mount.

DAISY DEVINE (Kafwain) galloped one mile with Larry Melancon aboard after
getting some time standing in the starting gate.

“It’s a routine thing I do with every horse that I run,” trainer Andrew
McKeever said. “I just figured today was a quiet day and over the next week it’s
going to get crazy.”

Daisy Devine is coming off a win in the richest Kentucky Oaks prep race, the
$500,000 Fair Grounds Oaks (G2). That race was more than five weeks ago, but a
sizable gap between starts has proven successful for the bay filly, who has
matured noticeably during those stretches.

“I think she’s progressed as much as she did from (running second in) the
Silverbulletday to the (Fair Grounds) Oaks,” McKeever said. “She improved a lot
between those two races and I think she’s doing the same thing again. But she
has to — it’s a different story this time.

Daisy Devine will stretch out to nine furlongs for the first time in the Oaks (Matt Wooley/EquiSport Photos)

Daisy Devine will work three-eighths with Melancon on Monday, breaking off
from the quarter-pole.

“She’s just going to skip through the lane, basically,” McKeever said.

ST. JOHN’S RIVER (Include) galloped 1 1/2 miles with exercise rider Robert
Wright aboard during the Oaks-Derby training session.

“We’ll gallop her right on up to the race from here on out,” trainer Andy
Leggio Jr. said. “I think we’re coming up to the race in good form and she’ll
run her race. If it’s good enough to win, we’ll see, but she’ll run her race.”

Leggio hopes the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Oaks, a sixteenth farther than
St. John’s River has previously raced, will work to her benefit.

“When she won the mile-and-70 (yard) race at Fair Grounds in January, she did
it very impressively and I was very pleased with the time and she looked like
she wanted to go a little farther, so that’s when we started thinking about Oaks
and all that kind of crazy stuff,” Leggio said. “But it’s worked out well and
we’re right on schedule.

“She was pretty good in that last race in New Orleans (finishing second in
the Fair Grounds Oaks). She was on top of her game at that time and she’s still
at that level right now. If that particular race and time are good enough to win
this one, then we can win it.”

Lilacs and Lace, seen here working Saturday, took Sunday off (Harold Roth/Horsephotos.com)

LILACS AND LACE (Flower Alley) was given a morning off from going to the
track Sunday after breezing five furlongs in 1:02 3/5 Saturday in preparation
for the Kentucky Oaks.

“She breezed yesterday, so she walked today. She came back 100 percent,” said
Reynaldo Abreu, assistant to trainer John Terranova. “We’re happy how she came
out of it. We were pleased with her work. That’s what we were looking for, a
nice easy breeze.”

Lilacs and Lace, who captured the Ashland at Keeneland in her most recent
start, will be ridden by Javier Castellano in Friday’s Oaks.

Bourbonette Oaks (G3) heroine SUMMER SOIREE (War Front) came out her
half-mile work of :48 4/5 on Saturday in good shape, according to trainer Graham
Motion.

“I had planned to take Summer Soiree out for a jog but because the weather
was so bad I didn’t bother,” Motion said. “She went under tack in the shedrow
and she did actually jog for a couple of minutes.”

Trainer John Sadler reported that “all is well” with Oaks candidate ZAZU
(Tapit) Sunday morning at Hollywood Park in Southern California one day after
her seven-furlong drill in 1:24 2/5 under race rider Joel Rosario.