Birdatthewire, Include Betty ready for Oaks with Churchill breezes

Birdatthewire has returned to the site of her maiden win (Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography)

Birdatthewire (Summer Bird) completed her
serious training for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks (G1) under exercise rider Faustino
Aguilar with a five-furlong workout Saturday
morning in 1:01 1/5 over the fast main track at Churchill Downs.

“She always works good,” trainer Dale Romans said. “She looked like here
normal self. We kept her a little off the rail to try to keep her slowed down a
little bit, and it looked like she did everything right.”

The workout was the seventh fastest of 67 workouts Saturday
at the distance. Birdatthewire’s fractions were :12 2/5, :24 2/5, :36 1/5 and :48
2/5 with a gallop-out times of 1:14 2/5 for six furlongs and 1:28 4/5 for seven
furlongs.

Birdatthewire has won two of three starts this year, taking the Forward Gal
S. (G2) and Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2) at
Gulfstream Park, with a close neck second in the Davona Dale S. (G2) sandwiched
between. The bay miss broke her maiden in her fourth start while going 1 1/16
miles at Churchill Downs in her juvenile finale in late November.

Include Betty could utilize Churchill’s long stretch to her advantage in the Oaks (Keeneland/Coady Photography)

“It was exactly what we wanted,” said Timothy Thornton, co-owner of
the filly and general manager at Airdrie Stud, the Midway, Kentucky, operation owned
by fellow Include Betty co-owner and former Kentucky governor Brereton Jones and his wife, Elizabeth.

“She’s not a real fast
workhorse in the first place. It was just the final tune-up to wake her up and
let her know that it’s almost race time.”

Include Betty was overlooked by bettors in the Fantasy
coming off a fifth-place finish in the grassy Florida Oaks (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs.
That race, however, didn’t have the kind of strong pace that best suits the
chestnut filly’s late-running style. The sub-48-second half-mile of the Fantasy
is more along the lines of what she needs to catch the early leaders, as she
demonstrated by making up more than 10 lengths in the final five-eighths for a
last-to-first victory.

“We’re excited about that long stretch at Churchill,”
Thornton said. “We’re hoping there’ll be some pace in there and it looks like
there will be. She won’t even be on the screen the first part of it. She’s a
filly you can’t rush. She just wants to lope behind but then once she decides to
run she really likes to go.”

Rosemary Homeister Jr., who has been aboard Include Betty
for every start of 2015 dating back to her maiden-breaker at Tampa Bay Downs on January 3,
has the call in the Kentucky Oaks.

Lovely Maria and… (Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography)

Trainer Larry Jones,
already a two-time winner of the Kentucky Oaks with Proud Spell (2008) and
Believe You Can (2012), is back at Churchill Downs with two of the top threats
for this year’s garland of lilies — Ashland S. (G1) winner
Lovely Maria (Majesticperfection) and Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) heroine I’m a
Chatterbox (Munnings).

After arriving from Keeneland by van late Friday afternoon, the pair
tested the local surface for the first time this season Saturday morning,
galloping 1 1/2 miles each, in succession, after the renovation break.

Larry Jones, who doesn’t typically gallop either filly but
left most of his help at Keeneland to tend to the rest of the stable, was aboard
for both gallops. Lovely Maria came to the track first at 8:30 a.m. to get her
exercise in before Jones hustled her back to Barn 43 so he could bring I’m a
Chatterbox out for the same routine before the track was reopened to all horses.

“I had to get in two for everyone else’s one,” Jones said. “I do not gallop
these horses every day. This is only the second day I’ve ever sat on Lovely
Maria and the other filly I’ve only galloped her about four times now.”

…I’m a Chatterbox took a tour of the Twin Spires under trainer Larry Jones (Churchill Downs/Reed Palmer Photography)

“It seems like I get the knuckleheads,” Jones said. “The ones that really
want to be strong and play around, seems like I get on them a lot. Once I find a
rider that really suits a horse, like Jorge (Nava) on Lovely Maria — he loves
her and she loves him — don’t change it. When that happens I just leave them
alone.”

Jones raved about the condition of the Churchill Downs
racing surface, which absorbed steady showers most of the morning.

“I’ve been coming here since 1982 and I thought this
morning was the best I’ve ever galloped over this track,” he praised. “It was
the most even, not a tractor rut, not a dip. I never felt anything but solid
track so, hallelujah, it looks like they’ve got it right.”

I’m a Chatterbox and Lovely Maria will breeze Sunday after
the renovation break at the same time, but not in company, with jockeys Kerwin
Clark (Lovely Maria) and Florent Geroux (I’m a Chatterbox).