Grade 1 winner Noted and Quoted hasn’t been seen in competition since finishing seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at Santa Anita Park on November 5, but on Sunday makes her sophomore debut in the $200,000 Sunland Park Oaks against six rivals.
The 1 1/16-mile contest is part of the Road to the Kentucky Oaks series of points races and will award 50-20-10-5 points to the respective top four finishers.
Noted and Quoted already owns 10 points, currently good for spot number 14 on the Kentucky Oaks Leaderboard, after taking the Chandelier Stakes (G1) last October. That followed a fourth-place effort in the Del Mar Debutante (G1) in early September. The gray daughter of The Factor gets a new jockey in Martin Garcia for Sunday’s return to action.
Ghalia puts her perfect two-for-two mark on the line in the race while facing stakes rivals for the first time. The Todd Pletcher-trained daughter of Medaglia d’Oro wired both of her starts thus far at Gulfstream Park, breaking her maiden by 6 3/4 lengths and taking an allowance/optional claimer by 1 1/2 lengths. Those were in sprints and Ghalia will stretch out here with Jose Ortiz in the saddle.
Soft Cheese is also unbeaten, having just broken her maiden by a neck at Oaklawn Park on March 2. The Kenny McPeek charge wired that 1 1/16-mile affair under returning jockey Richard Eramia.
Kell Paso and McKenzie Honey are the only other Sunland Park Oaks runners with stakes wins. The former scored the El Paso Times Stakes by 2 1/2 lengths at Sunland Park before just missing by three parts of a length after dueling in the Island Fashion Stakes most recently. McKenzie Honey triumphed in three of her last four, all against stakes company, at Turf Paradise. Her most recent stakes win came March 11 on that track’s turf course.
What What What and Conquest Slayer, both unplaced against stakes rivals, complete the Sunland Park Oaks field.
