Good Cheer stormed her way to the front down the stretch to take the 151st Kentucky Oaks on Friday at Churchill Downs and win her seventh race in as many career starts.
A sloppy track did not slow down the 6-5 betting favorite as she took the 1 1/8-mile Grade 1 stakes race in 1:50.15, beating 32-1 Drexel Hill by about three lengths before a crowd of 100,910.
Jockey Luis Saez kept the 3-year-old filly sired by Medaglia d’Oro off the pace set by Tenma and La Cara. Good Cheer was eighth among the field of 13 along the backstretch. La Cara led by a neck coming out of the final turn, giving way briefly to Tenma, but Good Cheer, sent wide by Saez, quickly passed the Bob Baffert-trained filly.
Drexel Hill and 17-1 Bless the Broken also passed the front-runners but could not keep pace with the five-time stakes winner.
It also marked Good Cheer’s second win on a wet track.
Tenma settled for fourth.
The favorite paid $4.78 to win, $3.62 to place and $3.02 to show. Drexel Hill paid $21.02 and $11.76, while Bless the Broken paid $7.48.
Trainer Brad Cox earned his third victory in one of the top races for 3-year-old fillies in the United States. The Louisville native previously won in 2018 with Monomoy Girl and two years later with Shedaresthedevil.
Godolphin LLC, Good Cheer’s owner, will also receive $930,000 of the guaranteed $1.5 million purse.
The off track was the result of a thunderstorm that blew through Louisville earlier Friday afternoon. Its severity caused track officials to pause racing until it passed. That ended up delaying the start of the race for about 10 minutes.
Cox, who won his only Kentucky Derby in 2021 with Mandaloun after Medina Spirit was disqualified for a failed drug test, will have a chance for the Oaks-Derby double as he trains Final Gambit in Saturday’s 1-1/4 mile race for 3-year-olds. Kenny McPeek, another Kentucky native trainer, accomplished the Oaks-Derby double last year with Thorpedo Anna and Mystik Dan.
–Field Level Media
