Four Gifts

Heiligbrodt Racing Stable’s Four Gifts overhauled favored Just Jenda to win the $113,300 Eight Belles (Grade III) for 3-year-old fillies by three lengths on Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs.

The race was formerly known as the La Troienne but changed this year to honor Eight Belles, the ill-fated runner-up to Big Brown in the 2008 Kentucky Derby who suffered a fatal injury a quarter-mile past the finish of that race.

Ridden by Shaun Bridgmohan, Four Gifts gave the Heiligbrodt Stable and trainer Steve Asmussen their second victory in the race with the other score coming in 2002 with Cashier’s Dream.

Auspicious, another Asmussen trainee, and Lady Laughter led the field of eight down the backside through the first quarter-mile in :23.34 with Just Jenda and Four Gifts sitting in a stalking position.

Lady Laughter disposed of Auspicious leaving the backstretch, but was soon challenged by Just Jenda, who swooped to the lead turning for home with Four Gifts right behind. Bridgmohan swung Four Gifts out at the eighth pole and drew clear for her fourth victory in nine starts.

Four Gifts, a Kentucky-bred daughter of Even the Score out of the Service Stripe mare Agiftfromservice, covered the 7 ½ furlongs on a “sloppy” main track in 1:30.94. The victory was worth $68,139 and increased Four Gifts’ earnings to $483,168.

Four Gifts returned payoffs of $9.60, $4.20 and $3. Just Jenda, owned by Cindy Jones and trained by her husband Larry Jones who trained Eight Belles, paid $3.40 and $2.80 under Gabriel Saez. The Jones-trained Warrior Maid took third another two lengths back under John Velazquez and paid $5 to show.

EIGHT BELLES QUOTES

SHAUN BRIDGMOHAN (rider of winner Four Gifts) – “I had a phenomenal trip. She settle really nice behind. She did everything I wanted her to do. The speed set up very good. I was able to watch the horse (Just Jenda) that I wanted to watch and got her on the outside of me. I just got her in the right spot that I though she needed to be, and the rest was up to her and she did it. She ran a really nice race for me.

“At the top of the stretch, I even thought about splitting (Just Jenda), and then Gabe (Saez) went to the right and drifted in a bit. So I had to alter course. Once I got on the outside of her, she just accelerated went on about her business along pretty nice.”

STEVE ASMUSSEN (trainer of winner Four Gifts) -- “I think the distance is the key with her. She’s been a very special filly, seven-eighths to a mile. I think the prep for the Fair Grounds Oaks, she ran a good race, but it put it in your head that that might have been a step too far because she made a great punch and then just backed up the last sixteenth.

“I think the off track and the company in the Fair Grounds Oaks definitely solidified what we need to do with her. I thought this was an ideal spot for her timing-wise as well as all the experience she had backing into it.

“The major targets for her going forward are the Acorn and the Test.”

GABRIEL SAEZ (rider of second-place finisher Just Jenda) – “That winner -- she was tracking me. I knew she was there, but we couldn’t stop her. My filly handled the track well and she ran hard. We just had to settle for second today.”

JOHN VELAZQUEZ (rider of third-place finisher Warrior Maid) – “Perfect trip; good run from my filly. Can’t ask for much more than that. She tried hard.”

L & M Racing’s Rachel Alexandra, a dominant winner of Churchill Downs’ Golden Rod (GII) and Oaklawn Park’s Martha Washington in her last two starts, will be the odds-on choice when she faces five rivals in Saturday’s $400,000 Fair Grounds Oaks (Grade II) at Fair Grounds.

If the Hal Wiggins-trained daughter of Medaglia d’Oro wins the 1 1/16-mile race, she will  to emulate 2008 Fair Grounds Oaks winner Proud Spell, who went on to win the $500,000 Kentucky Oaks (GI), America’s premier race for 3-year-old fillies, and earn the Eclipse Award that honored her as America’s finest 3-year-old filly.

Regular rider Calvin Borel will be in the irons aboard Rachel Alexandra, who is the odds-on favorite at odds of 4-5.

Heiligbrodt Stable’s Four Gifts, the Steve Asmussen-trained runner-up to injured stablemate War Echo in the Silverbulletday (GIII) at Fair Grounds, is the second choice at 5-2.  Others in the field include Our Dahlia, African Skies, Flying Spur and War Tigress.

WEST/STARDOM BOUND LIKELY TO STAY WITH FILLIES, TARGET KENTUCKY OAKS – Although she scored a fifth consecutive victory in Grade I stakes competition, last week’s narrow victory by 2008 2-year-old filly champion Stardom Bound in the Santa Anita Oaks (GI) was apparently not enough to keep her on course for a possible run against males in the Santa Anita Derby (GI) and, perhaps, a bid for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (GI).

Stardom Bound rallied to win the Santa Anita Oaks by a nose, but majority owner IEAH Stable had hoped to see more progress by the gray Tapit filly.  IEAH President Michael Iavarone said Monday the champion would now be pointed toward the Ashland (GI) at Keeneland, and a big run there would likely earn her a shot at the May 1 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.

“We have to think of her welfare and do what’s in her best interest,” said Iavarone. “What we were looking for in the Santa Anita Oaks and what we didn’t see is a leap forward.” 

Third Dawn, the John Sadler-trained Santa Anita Oaks runner-up at odds of 35-1, is also being pointed toward the Ashland Stakes.

OAKS NOTES – Brereton Jones’ Proud Spell, winner of the 2008 Kentucky Oaks, was upset by Superior Storm in her debut as a 4-year-old on Thursday at Oaklawn Park.  The Larry Jones trainee finished second as she could not catch the pacesetting winner over a muddy track. … Rags to Riches, the winner of the 2007 Kentucky Oaks who would later beat eventual ‘Horse of the Year’ Curlin, Hard Spun and other males in the Belmont Stakes (GI), delivered her first foal – a filly by Giant’s Causeway – on Monday at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky.