2020 Kentucky Oaks post position draw Monday morning

With wins by a combined 25 3/4 lengths in her two Grade 1 starts this summer, Gamine is expected to be made an odds-on morning-line favorite Monday morning when the field is drawn for the 146th Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.

“She’s getting stronger and stronger,” her trainer Bob Baffert told the track’s media team Saturday. “She’s more mature now. She’s just more professional.”

A field of 10, the smallest in seven years, was expected to be entered for Friday’s delayed renewal of the race that Baffert has won three times. Gamine’s rider, John Velázquez, got his only Oaks victory in 2004 on Ashado.

Best priced at 1-2 in overseas futures, Gamine could wind up as the shortest-priced post-time favorite in the Oaks since 2009. That was when Rachel Alexandra went off at odds of 3-10 and won by 20 1/4 lengths. 

Like Gamine, second favorite Swiss Skydiver will bring early speed. At about 3-1 in foreign markets, she will try for her fifth consecutive victory against fillies. Her only loss since the end of winter was her second-place finish against the boys led by Art Collector in last month’s Blue Grass Stakes (G2) at Keeneland. Tyler Gaffalione will ride her Friday for trainer Kenny McPeek.

Carrying futures odds between 8-1 and 10-1, pace chaser Speech broke a string of four second-place results with her victory last month in the Ashland (G1) at Keeneland. She has not raced since that first stakes victory in three tries. Javier Castellano, who won the Oaks four years ago on Cathryn Sophia, retains the ride for trainer Michael McCarthy. 

The rest of the field is expected to carry double digit odds, including Santa Ysabel winner Donna Veloce (trainer Simon Callaghan, jockey Ricardo Santana Jr.), Indiana Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil (Brad Cox, Florent Geroux),  Monmouth Oaks top two Hopeful Growth (Anthony Margotta, Manny Franco) and Project Whiskey (Butch Reid, Paco López), two-time allowance winner Dream Marie (Matthew Williams, Joe Talamo) and maiden winners Tempers Rising (Dallas Stewart, Julien Leparoux) and Bayerness (Cherie DeVaux, Rafael Bejarano).

Since she did not make her debut until her March victory at Santa Anita, Gamine would not have been in the Oaks had it been fully subscribed and run on its original date May 1. That was the weekend when she won an allowance race at Oaklawn Park only to be disqualified later because of a positive drug test. Her emphatic 18-length victory in the Test (G1) in June at Belmont Park earned her a Beyer Speed Figure of 110, the highest this year for a 3-year-old of either gender. 

Gamine then won by seven lengths this month in the Test (G1) sprint at Saratoga. The Oaks will mark her first time stretching to 1? miles. Conversely, Swiss Skydiver is cutting back from her 1¼-mile win coming up on three weeks ago in the Alabama (G1) at Saratoga. 

The draw program is scheduled to begin Monday at 11 a.m. EDT in the Aristides Room at Churchill Downs. Because of the pandemic, owners and trainers are the only guests allowed inside. The pill pull is scheduled to be done in two stages – 11:06-11:09 a.m. and 11:11-11:14 a.m. Mike Battaglia’s morning line will be read at 11:16 a.m. 

The program will be shown live on FS2 and ChurchillDowns.com.