Karlovy Vary all set to head for Churchill Downs for a run in the Kentucky Oaks
The 3-year-old filly, Karlovy Vary, surprised everyone when she displayed a scintillating front running win in the Grade 1, $500,000 Central Bank Ashland Stakes over the Keeneland race course’s synthetic surface going over a distance of 1 1/16 miles on 7
April, 2012, where she defeated Hard Not To Like in second and the ever reliable Stephanie’s Kitten in third, while she covered the distance in 1 minute and 44.82 seconds.
After her emphatic win, trainer Rusty Arnold is pointing his filly to the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks on 4 May, 2012, where she will run over a distance of 1 1/8 miles over at Churchill Downs’ dirt course.
The Kentucky bred daughter of Dynaformer, out of mare The Right Pew by Pulpit, Karlovy Vary landed her first stakes win in six starts.
She broke her maiden at second asking last year at Keeneland, and turned in two back to back seventh placed finishes in the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes and Ginger Brew Stakes, respectively.
Alex G. Campbell Jr. owned filly kicked off her 2012 campaign with a win in the Gulfstream Park’s allowance/optional claimer at about 1 1/16 miles on 26 February, 2012.
“She has her moments,” Arnold said about Karlovy Vary. “She’s got a little Pulpit in her, which is kind of a twofold situation. The Pulpits are great because they can run, but they can get a little wound up. She has those moments. Yesterday, she was very
well behaved. I think that’s what caused some of her problems at the end of her 2-year-old year. She had not mentally grown up.”
Karlovy Vary is scheduled to stay at Keeneland where she will work ahead of the Kentucky Oaks , but shortly after the filly will be shipped to Churchill Downs where she will turn in two more works ahead of the big race at Churchill Downs.
The Ashland Stakes runner-up, Hard Not To Like, is also pointed at the Kentucky Oaks, but the Canadian based filly will be shipped to Woodbine before any final decisions are made.
“She ran really well,” Cox said of Hard Not to Like. “There is a chance she could come back for the (Kentucky) Oaks. We will go home and talk about it.”
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