Connections expect step forward for Oaks participants

Unbridled Forever is a daughter of 2006 Kentucky Oaks winner Lemons Forever (Lou Hodges Jr./Hodges Photography) Untapable returned to the track Tuesday morning for the first time since her :48 3/5 half-mile breeze Sunday. The Kentucky Oaks favorite hit the Churchill Downs track with regular exercise rider Angel Garcia shortly after 6 a.m. (EDT) with trainer Steve Asmussen’s second set of horses, per her routine. Garcia took a hard hold on Untapable, who was clearly eager to do more than the easy gallop her trainer sent her on. Leaving Asmussen and his pony behind at the half-mile pole, Garcia tried to find a rhythm while keeping her relaxed in the middle of the track. As they finished their gallop down the backside, Untapable tossed her head and continued to give the impression of an aggressive filly who can’t wait for Friday. “I think keeping her on the ground between here and Friday is completely the issue,” Asmussen said.

Untapable drew the outside post 13 for the Kentucky Oaks, which Asmussen said
he was not concerned about, unlike his Kentucky Derby entrant, Tapiture, for
whom he would prefer a stall toward the outside of the gate.

“I’ll save all my draw luck for the Derby,” Asmussen said.

Trainer Dallas Stewart said he expects Unbridled Forever to run better in the
Kentucky Oaks than she did in the Fair Grounds Oaks, where she finished third, 9
1/2 lengths behind Untapable. Unbridled Forever was returning from a 10-week
layoff when she ran in the Fair Grounds Oaks.

“I thought she ran pretty good off a layoff,” Stewart said. “I actually
thought she was a little bit fitter than she was. She worked a couple of really
good three-quarters, and I came back two weeks before and just worked her
half-miles, easy, and I guess that might have been a little short on fitness
looking back. But she came out of it very healthy.

“She had a black-letter work here the other day, did it very easy. So she
seems like she’s moved her game up since the last race to me.”

In other Kentucky Oaks news:

Trainer Tom Proctor expects a better Oaks run from Please Explain (SV Photography) Trainer Tom Proctor expect a better effort from Please Explain in Friday’s Oaks. The Curlin filly broke her maiden in her fourth start at 1 1/16 miles at Gulfstream Park, and then won the Suncoast at Tampa Bay Downs by six lengths. Following the Suncoast victory, Please Explain finished third in the Honeybee and seventh in the Fantasy, both at Oaklawn. “She ran a good race in the Honeybee but the Fantasy was just a bad race,” Proctor said. “Maybe she just didn’t like the track. You can just throw that last race out.” Please Explain has had two works here since the Fantasy, the first being a 1:01 1/5 move on April 19.

“She worked head and head with Myositis Dan and you saw how he ran the other
night,” Proctor said of the colt who was beaten two noses in a third-place
finish in the Derby Trial. “That kind of sealed the deal.”

Julien Leparoux, who will ride Thank You Marylou in the Oaks, said he thinks
she might step forward from her performance in the Ashland on the synthetic
surface at Keeneland. She finished third in that race, her first around two
turns.

“I think it was a good race for her at Keeneland,” Leparoux said. “The first
race I rode her going short at Gulfstream, I think she might handle the dirt a
little better than the Polytrack. I mean, she handled the Polytrack good, but I
think the dirt might be where she likes it better.

“The distance I think is still a little question, but I think the race at
Keeneland definitely set her up for it here.”