Miss Behaviour won the 2014 Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks. Photo by Jeff Brammer.
From a Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races release
Brereton Jones’ Lovely Maria, winner of this year’s Kentucky Oaks (G1), as well as Stonestreet Stables’ recent Test (G1) victor Cavorting are the marquee names among the 36 three-year-old fillies nominated to the $350,000 Charles Town Oaks (G3) to be run on September 19 at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. The seven furlong Charles Town Oaks will serve as the featured race on the track’s Race for the Ribbon card, which includes a total of six stakes worth $700,000.
Following consecutive Grade 1 victories in the Ashland and Kentucky Oaks, the Larry Jones trained Lovely Maria has subsequently dropped her next two starts in the Delaware Oaks (G3) and Alabama (G1). Jones also has Beaumont (G2) runner-up Divine Dawn and stakes winner White Clover, most recently third in the Monmouth Oaks (G3) nominated.
Jones also currently sits second in the trainer standings for the Penn Gaming Racing Challenge series, 19 points behind Mike Maker on the strength of Cassatt’s victory in the Houston Ladies Classic in January.
Cavorting, a three-year-old filly by Bernardini, picked up the first Grade 1 score of her career in the seven furlong Test and second graded win overall having taken the Adirondack (G2) at Saratoga during her two-year-old campaign. In addition to Cavorting, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin also has Clothes Fall Off, a recent hard luck second in a Saratoga allowance race and Mrs. Hudson – a daughter of Street Sense out of multiple graded stakes winner Sara Louise – nominated.
Other graded stakes winners nominated to the Charles Town Oaks include multiple Grade 3 winner Sarah Sis, fourth this past weekend against older fillies and mares in the Ballerina (G1), the Bill Mott trained Ekati’s Phaeton who won the Old Hat (G3) and Davona Dale (G2) at Gulfstream Park earlier this year, Monmouth Oaks winner Delightful Joy from the Chad Brown barn and Promise Me Silver, conditioned by Bret Calhoun, who conquered the Eight Belles (G3) at Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Oaks undercard. .
Brown would be seeking his second Charles Town Oaks victory, having won the race in 2012 with Book Review while Promise Me Silver could become the second horse to pull off the Eight Belles-Charles Town Oaks double, following in the footsteps of So Many Ways who accomplished the feat in 2013.
Nominations for a pair of undercard stakes – the $100,000 Wild & Wonderful for older colts and geldings and the $100,000 Pink Ribbon for older fillies and mares, both run at seven furlongs – close on Saturday, September 5.
