This Week in Racing: Midnight Bisou Kentucky Oaks-worthy

Often prone to zag when others tend to zig, I will not begin this week's review column with tales of monster performances on the 2018 Kentucky Derby trail. Rather, I will look to the girls.

The Kentucky Oaks is one of my favorite races, and it too deserves a little love on the long and winding road to Louisville, and the first weekend of May. 

Admittedly, I had a difficult time in finding a juvenile filly that I truly believed in last year, but sure enough, as the calendar turned, I quickly found the Oaks prospect I had been seeking. Her name is Midnight Bisou.

After two heartbreaking, nose defeats to begin her career, the Bill Spawr-trained filly came into Sunday's Grade 2 Santa Ynez Stakes as both a maiden and one of the horses to beat. It needs to be noted that both of her first two career defeats came at the hands of the undefeated multiple stakes winner Dream Tree and both of those losses were not without trouble for the narrow runner-up. Rightly well-respected in Sunday's feature at Santa Anita, the 9-5 second choice for Bloom Racing put it all together in breaking her maiden in absolute style.

In fact, watching Midnight Bisou rally wide and explode down the stretch to a decisive 4 ½-length tally in the 7 furlong affair brought my mind back seven years to another powerful, stretch-running filly based in California. Now, comparing a first-time winner to the excellent Blind Luck may seem quite premature, but that is what I saw in this daughter of Midnight Lute. With Mike Smith along for the ride, Midnight Bisou gave me every indication of big things to come in her future.

Now to the boys. Clearly the most-hyped horse early on this year's Derby trail is McKinzie. With all things hyped, you never know for sure how much substance is really there. A son of a Kentucky Derby winner in Street Sense, and trained by a multiple Kentucky Derby-winning trainer in Bob Baffert, the well-regarded colt was impressive in winning first out. Despite not hitting the wire first in the Los Alamitos Futurity, his stakes debut was a very promising performance. His third race came on Saturday when he was hammered down to prohibitive favoritism in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes, and he did what heavy favorites should do.

Let's not sugarcoat the easy victory too much, though. With the scratch of his stablemate, Mourinho, this race came up like anything but a difficult test for McKinzie. The good news is that he looked very much more relaxed with the subtraction of blinkers. He took over the race easily and smoothly cruised to the wire a good looking winner. For all those on his train for Kentucky, I see nothing to dissuade you.

And so McKinzie marches on as one of the early favorites for the Run for the Roses. Is he worthy of all the hype? He may be, but like so many winter book favorites, I need to see more.

Speaking of needing to see more, how did you like Mask in his 3-year-old debut? I thought he looked like a million bucks.

Yes, he appeared fantastic physically, but he also had about as easy a race setup as a horse can hope for in winning Saturday's Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream Park. His lead on a dawdling early pace was so easy that, in the grand scheme of things, this race will probably mean little moving forward. Still, it was exactly what you wanted to see from a colt who had impressively broken his maiden first out over a strong next-time winner in Navistar.

Easy pace, or not, you could just see what type of athlete this Chad Brown trainee can be. And his looks -- oh boy, his looks. Suffice it to say he embodies everything I like to see physically in a racehorse.

I also believe that he has now beaten good horses in both his debut and also in this eye-catching, 6 1/4-length victory in the Mucho Macho Man. The two-time stakes winner Bal Harbour, who rallied up the rail for a distant second, and the previously unbeaten Dak Attack, who ran third, should both be heard of again in the coming months.

We definitely need to see more from this budding star from Lane's End, but as of now, I love what I see. ZATT's Star of the Week, is ... Mask!

This coming long weekend offers up three Derby trail stakes races: the Jerome at Aqueduct, the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park, and the LeComte at Fair Grounds. Of the three, the one I am most looking forward to is Saturday's feature in the Big Easy. 

Principe Guilherme has looked like any kind in his first two, but the LeComte should provide him with a whole different level of test. Instilled Regard was right there in the Los Alamitos Futurity, and was only flattered by the run of McKinzie in the Sham. Throw in a talented filly, Wonder Gadot, and the fleet Kowboy Karma, plus a large field, and the LeComte figures to be a very interesting race.

One more note from this past weekend's stakes races ... He might not receive a great deal of national attention, but the French-bred Itsinthepost is proving to be one of America's best grass runners. Now in his prime at six, he looked better than ever in decisively scoring in Saturday's Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes in 1:47.59 for the nine furlongs.

Trained by Jeff Mullins, Itsinthpost could only manage a middle-of-the-pack finish in the Breeders' Cup Turf, but keep in mind he was only beaten by about five lengths. His win on Saturday marked the seventh time in the past 12 months where he finished first or second in a graded stakes race. Wouldn't we all like to own a horse like him?

Finally, there were no big surprises in the announcement of the Eclipse Award finalists. Gun Runner is certain to be the big winner, but I have come around on Rushing Fall as the Juvenile Filly Champion. Turf or not, she has the best credentials of 2017. I was also disappointed to see that Ami's Mesa did not make the Female Sprinter cut. Granted much of her success came in Canada, but in her last two, she proved what she could do in the U.S. No North American female sprinter was more consistent than Ami's Mesa last year.