Denim and Pearls will be looking to nail down some Kentucky Oaks points on Saturday when she starts as the probable favorite in the $250,000 Martha Washington at Oaklawn Park.
The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies will offer its first five finishers points on a scale of 20-10-6-4-2. The race is part of the annual Southwest Stakes Day card featuring four stakes on a 12-race program that begins at 11:30 a.m. Central.
The stakes, which will form a pick four on races 8-11, were originally scheduled to be run Jan. 27, but the impact of a winter storm led Oaklawn officials to move the date for the card to Saturday.
Denim and Pearls faces eight others in the Martha Washington, a race her trainer, Brad Cox, has won two of the last four years. She enters off a runner-up finish in the Year’s End run Dec. 31 at Oaklawn. Denim and Pearls was beaten just three-quarters of a length by a more seasoned stakes winner in Ice Cold.
“She ran well,” Cox said. “She kind of maybe got lost a little bit when she hit the front turning for home. She didn’t give in – obviously a good filly got the jump on her. Hopefully, she got something out of it. It was her first two-turn test.”
Denim and Pearls is now 2 for 3, having won her maiden and a first-level allowance in her first two starts in Kentucky. She earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 81 for her Year’s End, which is the best last-race number in the Martha Washington.
She’s also bred to be a runner as a daughter of the top class sire Into Mischief and a full sister to Grade 3 winner Newgate.
“She’s a young filly that physically is beautiful, has a nice pedigree,” Cox said. “We probably weren’t really intending on running in this race, but we got the extra week with it being delayed and that kind of made it a little bit more appealing. So, we will see what we can get done.”
Denim and Pearls, who is based at Fair Grounds, will break from post 8 under Florent Geroux.
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by Mary Rampellini
DRF Feb 1, 2024
