My Kentucky Oaks Predictions

The Kentucky Oaks will be shown live on NBC Sports Network on Friday, 1 May,  at 5:49 (Eastern Daylight Savings Time).  The race's purse is worth $1 million, the distance covered by the three-year-old fillies is one and one-eighth miles, and the girls will each carry 121 pounds.  The winner of the race will take home $600,000.  There are fourteen entries in the race, plus one alternate, in case of a scratch.  All of the fillies were bred in Kentucky, except Stellar Wind, the betting favorite, who was born in Virginia, and the alternate entry, Peace and War, who is a Florida-bred.  If you look at coat colors, Shook Up and Oceanwave are greys (or roans), and there are three chestnuts - Include Betty, I'm a Chatterbox, and Stellar Wind- the rest of the field is bay or dark bay/brown.
   Mike Battaglia set the betting odds as follows:  his favorite is Stellar Wind, who had the most qualifying points, at 7 to 2 odds; he has two fillies at 4 to 1 odds, Condo Commando and I'm a Chatterbox;  Lovely Maria is listed at 5 to 1; and Birdatthewire is at 6 to 1. Mike has two 15 to 1 shots picked, Forever Unbridled, breaking from the inside post, and Puca, who starts on the outside.  The other fillies are listed at odds between 20 and 50 to 1.  I have my own favorite bloodlines that I bet on, and was stymied by the fact that all the entries, except Shook Up, have at least three of my favorite sires in their pedigrees.  Yesterday's last blog listed the post positions, jockeys, and betting odds for this race.
  I still think that Condo Commando will take the race by a nose over Stellar Wind.  Neither of these fillies has raced on the Churchill Downs track, though, and some horses just don't like it.  My dream finish would be Forever Unbridled in first, Oceanwave in second, Include Betty in third, and Puca in fourth.  Horse racing is horse racing - there are so many possibilities that it boggles the mind.  No matter how much you study past races, bloodlines, jockeys and trainers, and the horses themselves, it's always a crap shoot.  Racing luck, weather, how the horse feels, what the atmosphere is like (in both senses), whether the horse "likes" the track and the crowd should always be factored in for any race analysis...  And that's what makes picking a winner on any given day for any particular race such a fantastic feeling.  I don't bet much - but I certainly love to win!