The Path is Clear for Oscar Performance
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Photo:
NYRA/Chelsea Durand
The path to multiple Eclipse Awards is a clear one for Oscar Performance. With two starts to go in his three-year-old season, all the son of Kitten's Joy would need to do is win both. Then his connections can sit back and wait for the hardware to roll in.
Of course, it's always easier said than done, but the ridgling has yet to drop the ball in his biggest tests to date. He's already solidified himself as a prime contender for both the Three-Year-Old Male Championship and the Turf Male Championship by winning three graded stakes on the trot, and the good news is, he only seems to be getting better.
His final push begins on Super Saturday, September 30 at Belmont Park. The Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, at twelve furlongs on the Belmont lawn, will present new challenges for the Brian Lynch trainee. If he can win the half-million dollar affair, it would earn Oscar Performance an all expenses paid trip to an even bigger test --the Grade 1, $4 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf on November 4 at Del Mar.
A winner of six-of-nine overall, Oscar Performance would already be a champion if they awarded one to juvenile turf horses. A decisive victory in last fall's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, despite an outside post and testing fractions, cemented his place as the best turf two-year-old in the land.
After a slow start to his sophomore campaign, the Kentucky-bred bay of Amerman Racing has turned up the heat on his opposition in the last three. First he proved clearly best in the Grade 3 Pennine Ridge at Belmont going 9 furlongs, before scoring in the $1.2 million Belmont Derby Invitational.
In both of those races, he proved his fondness for the same turf course he will see in the Joe Hirsch, and in the latter, he proved himself quite capable of carrying his speed ten furlongs. Each quality should suit him well as he tackles those aforementioned new challenges on Super Saturday. First, it will be his first try against older competition. Secondly, it will be a full quarter mile than he has yet run. Both factors are daunting, but as good as he is going right now, he will take some beating on September 30.
Since his last big win at Belmont, Oscar Performance only enhanced his growing reputation, and list of accomplishments, with a comprehensive 2 ¼-length score in the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington Park. That one came on on August 12, leaving only the two more big tests for his 2017.
While West Coast, among the three-year-old dirt males, and World Approval, among the older turf males, are both making their own push, each are likely to fall short in their respective divisions if Oscar Performance can finish off his season with a flourish. Two more big races -- his path to multiple Eclipse Awards is all right there in front of him
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