The road to Oaklawn’s prestigious Grade 1 Apple Blossom winds through the Grade 3 $250,000 Bayakoa Stakes on Saturday. Named for the 1989 Apple Blossom winner Bayakoa, who won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff later that season and again in 1990, Saturday's feature in Hot Springs, Ark. matches older fillies and mares over 1-1/16 miles.
Let’s meet the contenders for Saturday’s Bayakoa (Race 9):
#1-CORNINGSTONE: Looks to continue her current run of winning Oaklawn’s Mistletoe and Pippin Stakes in succession. Trainer Kenny McPeek has a meet-best 3 stakes winners this Oaklawn season, while jockey Julien Leparoux leads all riders with 4 stakes wins. Indiana-bred mare by Kantharos was stakes-placed in the Grade 3 Houston Ladies Classic and Grade 2 Locust Grove last year and seeks her first graded-stakes victory.
#2-WILD BOUT HILARY: Wire-to-wire winner of Fair Grounds’ Pago Hop Stakes most recently over a sloppy track. She’s won 2 of her last 3, both wet track races that were originally slated for the turf. New Orleans-based filly by Midnight Lute has flashed back-to-back bullet FG workouts for her first Oaklawn road trip. C.J. McMahon rides in this 4-year-old’s first graded-stakes bid.
#3-LITTLE JAMIE: Tampa Bay Downs’ last-out Wayward Lass winner makes her first Oaklawn start since breaking her maiden locally last March. Robbie Medina trains the Grade 3 Indiana Oaks runner-up and Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks third-place finisher. Jockey Ramon Vazquez won the 2022 Bayakoa aboard Miss Bigly and currently has ridden 3 stakes winners at the Oaklawn meet.
#4-BOW DRAW: Mare by 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow, who was second at Oaklawn in the Rebel earlier that spring, looks to snap a 6-race losing streak and register her first career stakes victory. Third in the Mistletoe and fourth in the Pippin already this Oaklawn meet, finishing more than 5 lengths behind Bayakoa rival Corningstone in both. Rocco Bowen rides for Henry West, Jr.
#5-FREE LIKE A GIRL: 21-time winner has been a Louisiana-bred stakes stalwart, earning $2.1 million despite just a $5,500 initial sales purchase price. Now age 6, she returns to Oaklawn for the first time since finishing third in last April’s Grade 1 Apple Blossom. Chasey Pomier trainee exits a fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Houston Ladies Classic. Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. is a 2-time Bayakoa winner (2017 Terra Promessa, 2019 She’s a Julie).
#6-LOVED (pictured, outside): Expected favorite returns from her Grade 3 Falls City victory at Churchill Downs on Thanksgiving Day. That was the Godolphin-owned filly’s first graded stakes win and evened her record at 5 wins from 10 starts. Brendan Walsh trains the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, who has been based this winter at Turfway Park on the Tapeta. Gulfstream-based jockey Tyler Gaffalione makes his first Oaklawn appearance of the meeting.
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