In her most recent effort, the Kentucky-bred trained by Kenneth McPeek posted a 1 3/4-length score in the mile and a sixteenth Grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita May 30.

“She is doing great,” said trainer Ken McPeek. “We could not be happier with this filly. She handled the race in California pretty handily, so hopefully we will be able to pull off the coast-to-coast bookend and pull off the Santa Anita to Delaware Park double. The Delaware Oaks is a real good spot for her. The money, the grade and the timing are all what we are looking for. We are excited that Mike Smith is coming back to ride her and I suspect she will be tough.”

Previously, the daughter of Liam's Map was unplaced in mile and an eighth Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on April 30. In her two other outings this year, she won the mile and a sixteenth Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks by 2 ¼-lengths on March 27 and finished second in the one mile Grade 2 Davona Dale at Gulfstream Park on February 27.

Last year, she posted a record of two wins and two seconds from five starts which included a second in the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland and a second in the Grade 3 Pocahantas Stakes at Churchill Downs. She closed her 2020 campaign by finishing sixth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filly at Keeneland.

Her connections are intending to use the Delaware Oaks as springboard for further engagements this summer in upstate New York.

“Absolutely, there is no question and after the Delaware Oaks, she will ship to Saratoga,” McPeek said. “If she runs well, she might comeback in the Coaching Club or we may skip the Coaching Club and run in the Alabama. We have not decided that yet, but she will be definetly be headed to Saratoga.”

She has a career record of four wins and three seconds from nine starts with earnings of $520,865.

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Crazy Beautiful, a gray daughter of Liam's Map, is coming off a disappointing but eventful 10th-place finish against 12 rivals in the G1 Kentucky Oaks on April 30, when she was seriously impeded at the start.

“It was a pretty good case of bumper cars,” McPeek said by phone from Churchill Downs. “She got kind of mangled leaving there and again in the middle of the race. It seemed like nothing went right.

“Obviously, there will be a lot less traffic on Sunday (with five horses going 1 1/16 miles) than her last race. She's a classy filly who's already won a Grade 2 (the Gulfstream Park Oaks on March 27, prior to the Kentucky Oaks), so we felt like this was a good spot for her. We're excited to hopefully getting her back to her winning ways.”

With McPeek busy back east with the likes of Swiss Skydiver, who runs in the G1 Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park on June 5, Crazy Beautiful is being cared for at Santa Anita by trainer Karen Headley.

“Bruce (Karen's late father) and Karen are longtime friends,” McPeek said. “I've shipped into their barns for years. She'll saddle her and handle all the details.”

Bruce Headley was a charismatic and colorful trainer whose most accomplished runner was Kona Gold, Eclipse Award champion sprinter of 2000. He set a six-furlong track record of 1:07.77 that year winning the Breeders' Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs.

“The old man was a great guy,” McPeek said. “I always had a lot of respect for him as a horseperson.”

The Summertime Oaks is race eight of nine with a 1 p.m. first post time: Lady Aces, Umberto Rispoli, 4-1; Crazy Beautiful, Mike Smith, 6-5; $4,000 supplemental entry Plum Sexy, Abel Cedillo, 20-1; Soothsay, Flavien Prat, 4-5; and Absolute Scenes, Trevor McCarthy, 50-1.

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Soothsay's biggest competition is likely to come from a filly who did not show up on Oaks day, 10th-place finisher Crazy Beautiful (Liam's Map). If you put a line through her Oaks effort, she enters this test with a pretty strong resume. Runner-up in the GI Alcibiades S. last term, the gray rallied to be second in the GII Davona Dale S. Feb. 27 at Gulfstream and captured the GII Gulfstream Park Oaks next out a month later. She got off to a bad start in the Oaks and never really recovered, failing to factor at all in the nine-furlong event. Crazy Beautiful gains the services of Hall of Famer Mike Smith for her West Coast debut.

Peter Eurton saddles a much less experienced runner against the headliners in Lady Aces (Constitution). The dark bay earned her diploma at second asking in a six-panel event in Arcadia May 2.

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Kenny McPeek-trained Grade 2 stakes winner Crazy Beautiful, who ships west from her Churchill Downs base, and Peter Eurton's sharp recent stakes winner Lady Aces, could both prove formidable in a race that doesn't appear to have an abundance of early pace.

Ridden by leading man Flavien Prat in both of her starts, Soothsay rallied from off the pace to win her six furlong debut by 1 ½ lengths on Feb. 26 and then had the look of something very special indeed when she dominated the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks on April, winning by a half length at 1 1/16 miles.

By Distorted Humor out of the Bernardini mare Spellbound, Soothsay is owned by Claiborne Farm, Perry Bass, Ramona Bass and Adele Dilschneider. Unbeaten in her two starts, she earned a lofty 87 Beyer Speed figure in her most recent start and appears to have any kind of future.

Devoid of early foot, Crazy Beautiful rallied from off the pace to register an impressive 2 ¼ length win in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks two starts back on March 27. Subsequently 10th in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks April 30, this Kentucky-bred daughter of Liam's Map will try to bounce back in her Southern California debut.

Owned by Phoenix Thoroughbred III, Crazy Beautiful, who took a seven furlong ungraded stakes at Ellis Park in her second start on Aug. 9, 2020, is 8-3-3-0 overall and is the leading money earner in the field with $400,865. Ridden by Jose Ortiz in her last two starts, Crazy Beautiful will get the first-time services of Mike Smith on Sunday.

Owned and bred in Maryland by C R K Stable, LLC, Lady Aces rallied for an emphatic 3 ½ length maiden score going six furlongs here on May 2 and may well employ front-running tactics as she stretches out for the first time in what will be her third start.

Out of the Pleasantly Perfect mare Economy of Motion, Lady Aces will be ridden for the first time by Umberto Rispoli, as Prat opts to stick with the top selection.

THE GRADE 2 SUMMERTIME OAKS WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER

Race 8 of 9 Approximate post time 4:30 p.m. PT

1. Lady Aces—Umberto Rispoli—120
2. Crazy Beautiful—Mike Smith—124
3. Plum Sexy—Abel Cedillo–120
4. Soothsay—Flavien Prat—124
5. Absolute Scenes—Trevor McCarthy–120

First post time for a nine-race card on Sunday is at 1 p.m. For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.

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