Whoa Nellie Won't Fumble Opportunity in Bayakoa
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Photo: Coady Photography
Whoa Nellie rallies to victory in the Pippin Stakes at Oaklawn Park
Late college football broadcaster Keith Jackson was known for shouting "Whoa, Nellie!" during key plays, an exclamation that originated from a rider's command to manage an eager horse.
On Feb. 17 at Oaklawn Park, track announcer Vic Stauffer and thousands of fans will also have cause to shout it out—only in this case, they'll be exclaiming the name of a filly: Fox Hill Farm's Whoa Nellie, the probable favorite in the $200,000 Bayakoa Stakes (G3), the day's sixth race.
The winner of the Jan. 25 Pippin Stakes at Oaklawn heads a field of six for the 1 1/16-mile Bayakoa, the track's first graded race of the season for fillies and mares that leads to Oaklawn's $1 million Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) Apr. 18. Also entered are stakes winners Go Google Yourself, Cairenn, Motion Emotion, and Lady Suebee, plus graded-placed Gold Standard.
Unlike those rivals, Whoa Nellie has the benefit of a win at the meet that began Jan. 24. Breaking from the far outside in the Pippin, her first venture into stakes company, she settled in eighth, 7 3/4 lengths off the early leaders, and swooped wide past the field under Joe Rocco Jr. to win by 4 1/2 lengths over next-out American Beauty Stakes winner Special Relativity.
Video: Pippin S. (BT)
Also left behind were third-place Cairenn and fourth-place Lady Suebee, the latter after setting demanding fractions on a tiring main track rated good.
"They were thankfully running a pretty wicked pace up front," trainer Larry Jones said. "That gave her something to close into and them to back up to her. Whatever in the world happened, she caught up. She did it well without (Rocco) having to fight with her. It was very pleasing to see her do what we needed her to do."
Whoa Nellie more often sits within three to four lengths of the leaders before rallying. The daughter of Orb has won five of nine races and $256,230. She was bred in Kentucky by Doug and Felicia Branham and was a $220,000 purchase by her owner at the 2017 Keeneland September Yearling Sale from the Paramount Sales consignment.
The richest entrant is $519,625 earner Go Google Yourself, the race's lone graded stakes winner. A 5-year-old homebred daughter of Into Mischief , she captured the Locust Grove Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs last fall before finishing her 4-year-old season with a runner-up finish in the Nov. 28 Falls City Handicap (G2) there for Samantha Siegel's Jay Em Ess Stable.
"She ran big—she did everything but win," trainer Paul McGee said of her second in the Falls City. "She got run down late, but I feel like she ran a big race—just couldn't hold off the winner (Mylady Curlin)."
Although based at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots in New Orleans, Go Google Yourself won a third-level allowance optional claimer in March at Oaklawn over Wonder Gadot, the Canadian Horse of the Year in 2017.
Brian Hernandez Jr., aboard for Go Google Yourself's past three races, returns in the saddle.
The Bayakoa, the first of three graded races Monday at Oaklawn, has a post time of 3:08 p.m. CT and is followed later in the afternoon by the Razorback Handicap (G3) and Southwest Stakes (G3).
The $350,000 Azeri Stakes (G2) is the next race in Oaklawn's series for older female dirt runners, a race likely to draw Whoa Nellie's stablemate Street Band, the Cotillion Stakes (G1) winner, and potentially the 1-2 finishers just ahead of her in the Houston Ladies Classic Stakes (G3), Lady Apple and Serengeti Empress.
Oaklawn Park, Monday, February 17, 2020, Race 6Entries: Bayakoa S. (G3)
PP
Horse
Jockey
Wgt
Trainer
M/L
1
Gold Standard (KY)
Javier Castellano
117
Brad H. Cox
-
2
Go Google Yourself (KY)
Brian Joseph Hernandez, Jr.
119
Paul J. McGee
-
3
Cairenn (FL)
John R. Velazquez
115
John Alexander Ortiz
-
4
Motion Emotion (KY)
David Cohen
119
Richard Baltas
-
5
Lady Suebee (KY)
Tyler Baze
119
John W. Sadler
-
6
Whoa Nellie (KY)
Joseph Rocco, Jr.
119
J. Larry Jones
-
