Plum Pretty to head a field of five in the Apple Blossom Stakes
With Havre de Grace bypassing the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Stakes at Oaklawn Park, and in result losing a chance to defend her title, Bob Baffert trained 4-year-old filly, Plum Pretty, assumes the favourite role in a race that has attracted just five
fillies and mares to run over a distance of 1 1/16 miles over Oaklawn Park’s dirt course on 13 April, 2012.
Owner Rick Porter and Havre de Grace’s trainer Larry Jones opted to go past the Apple Blossom Stakes because they thought that they were unfairly assigned 123 pounds.
Similar event took place in 2010, when a highly anticipated matchup between the reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra was to go against Zenyatta in the Apple Blossom Stakes, but the mare was scratched from the race.
The Apple Blossom Stakes have made news in the past of the horses that have opted to bypass the race that the ones who have competed in it. Though, the Peachtree Stable owned, Plum Pretty will be making her seasonal debut in the Apple Blossom Stakes with
the favourite tag.
The Pennsylvania bred daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, out of mare Liszy by A.P. Indy, Plum Pretty was last in action last fall at Churchill Downs when she weakened to finish a dismal fifth to winner Royal Delta in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic.
Though she has been out of action for the past three and a half months, but she has been training for the Apple Blossom Stakes at Santa Anita Park, and her most recent work was on 9 April, 2012, where she clocked four furlongs in 48 seconds flat.
Plum Pretty will carry the high weight of 117 pounds, as she will break from the outside post number 5 and Rafael Bejarano, who rode her last, will retain the ride.
The main threat in the field of five for Plum Pretty will come from Absinthe Minded and Tiz Miz Sue, but both these fillies have a score to settle of their own.
Both of them have met four times at Oaklawn Park, and in the last race they both competed in was the Grade 3 Azeri Stakes which Tiz Miz Sue took while Absinthe Minded finished fourth.
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