Eye on the Oaks: Don't Leave Me

Don't Leave Me scores in the Grade 3 Bourbonette Oaks at Turfway Park. (Photos by Eclipse Sportswire)
The sister race to the Kentucky Derby, the $1-million, 1 1/8-mile Kentucky Oaks is held annually at Churchill Downs on the Friday before the Derby and restricted to 3-year-old fillies (young female horses). Eye on the Oaks, which will run through the 2015 edition of the race, takes a closer look at fillies who have won important races and could make an impact as we move toward the first Friday in May.
This week we take a closer look at Don’t Leave Me, winner of Saturday’s Grade 3 Bourbonette Oaks at Turfway Park.

Don’t Leave Me has won three of her four career starts, capped by her first graded stakes victory in Saturday’s Bourbonette Oaks. The win earned her 50 points, good for sixth place on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks leaderboard if her connections nominate her to the race.
Racing Résumé
Don’t Leave me has spent most of her career north of the border, racing at Woodbine in Toronto, Canada for her first three starts. She debuted a winner with a head victory in early August on the all-weather track and followed that effort up with another win just three weeks later, this time by 1 ¾ lengths. That second victory was a then-career-high Equibase speed figure of 75 on a turf course labeled good.
The filly followed up her first turf tally with her first graded stakes try in September. Rainy weather caused the Natalma Stakes to be held on a yielding turf course, and after being bumped at the start Don’t Leave Me finished sixth of 12.
Don’t Leave Me was given a lengthy break of nearly six months after that start and didn’t appear in the entries again until this past weekend’s Bourbonette Oaks. Despite the layoff, her synthetic form was good, and bettors made her the third choice in the field of 12.
When the gates sprung open, Don’t Leave Me and jockey Jose Lezcano were content to gallop along in mid-pack while Sweet Success set fractions of :47.84 for a half-mile and 1:12.87 for six furlongs. Don’t Leave Me began advancing entering the turn for home, and at the top of the stretch the pair had swung wide for clear running. They collared the leaders in mid-stretch and drew clear for a ¾-length victory over Sweet Success and Sharla Rae.
DON'T LEAVE ME ENTERS THE WINNER'S CIRCLE

With the win, Don’t Leave Me earned an 88 speed figure, a remarkable 13-point improvement from her previous career best. As this was her first start off a long layoff, one would expect there to be room for improvement in her next race, though there’s no guarantee it will come in the Kentucky Oaks.
All of Don’t Leave Me’s starts so far have come on a synthetic surface or the turf, and trainer Malcom Pierce expressed hesitation running the filly on the dirt.
“She ran well in the fall at Woodbine [on Polytrack],” Pierce said to the Daily Racing Form. “We’ll have to see how she cools out, but this is Polytrack and [the Oaks is] on the dirt. It’s a whole different ballgame.”
Despite this, the filly’s pedigree shows promise on the dirt and at the 1 1/8-mile Kentucky Oaks distance, and connections can nominate the filly through April 8. She's already proven to be a router, as with her win in the Bourbonette Oaks, she's won a graded stakes at 1 mile. We’ll take a closer look at her pedigree potential later.
Running Style
Don’t Leave Me is a closer that prefers to sit toward the back of the field for much of the race, letting others set the pace up front. When given her cue she advances willingly and has made up at least five positions in each of her races, including her sixth-place finish. This style works out great if the closer gets a clear run into a fast pace, but can be troublesome if the leaders were crawling up front or a large field causes a traffic jam.

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Pedigree
Don’t Leave Me races as a homebred for Pin Oak Stable. The Lemon Drop Kid filly is out of Pin Oak’s multiple graded stakes winner See How She Runs, and her pedigree is one with dirt and distance potential.
Lemon Drop Kid is a Belmont Stakes winner and a versatile sire, one whose offspring have won at the classic distance and excelled on all three surfaces. His leading earner, Richard’s Kid, won multiple Grade 1 races at 1 ¼ miles and 1 1/8 miles on synthetic, his Somali Lemonade is a Grade 1 winner at 1 1/8 miles on the turf, and his Lemons Forever is a Kentucky Oaks winner herself, winning the 1 1/8-mile race over the Churchill Downs dirt in 2006.
Don’t Leave Me’s dam, See How She Runs, won the Grade 1, 1 1/16-mile Selene Stakes at Woodbine when the track was dirt and also captured the Grade 2 Fantasy at a mile on the Oaklawn dirt. She has five winners from her six foals that have raced, and all four other than Don’t Leave Me have won on the dirt as well.
Second dam Beau Cougar was also a dirt runner, who finished third in the Rare Perfume Stakes at a mile. Six of her eight foals to race were winners, including Canadian champion grass horse Hasten to Add and stakes producers Cat and the Fiddle and It’s a Cat. Beau Cougar accounts for seven black-type horses in Don’t Leave Me’s pedigree, while third dam Miss Beaustark and fourth dam Beauful add 11 more.
Though the field she faced in the Bourbonette Oaks wasn’t the strongest, Don’t Leave Me ran very well off a long layoff and leaves room for improvement in her second start at three. Her first four career starts have come on turf or all-weather, but her pedigree shows dirt and distance potential, and it will be interesting to see if her connections decide to try dirt in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks.