Terra Promessa Heads Fantasy Stakes

Terra Promessa returns to the starting gate at Oaklawn Park, the scene of her first graded stakes win, to face five rivals in the April 9 Fantasy Stakes (gr. III).

The Fantasy Stakes, for 3-year-old fillies, offers a purse of $400,000 and 100 points to the winner towards starting eligibility for the $1 million Longines Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) May 6 at Churchill Downs. The Fantasy runner-up will earn 40 points, with the third- and fourth-place finishers earning 20 and 10 points, respectively.

Terra Promessa's prior start was her stakes debut, where she drew off to a 6 1/2 length victory in Oaklawn's March 12 Honeybee Stakes (gr. III), the track's prep race for the Fantasy. She was a nine-length entry-level allowance winner in her 3-year-old season opener Feb. 5, also at Oaklawn.

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The Curlin   filly has a record of 3 wins in 4 starts for trainer Steve Asmussen and owner Stonestreet Stables.

Taxable, also trained by Asmussen but for Winchell Thoroughbreds, will be sent postward with an undefeated 2-for-2 record. The Tapit   filly made her debut at age 2 at Churchill Downs in a maiden special weight. She returned to the track this March, winning an allowance optional claiming race at Oaklawn.

Cosmic Evolution enters the Fantasy coming off a third-place finish in Terra Promessa's Honeybee, and won the Debutante Stakes at Churchill as a 2-year-old. She had her first work under jockey Ramon Vazquez this week, going 3 furlongs in :39 1/5.

Vazquez, Oaklawn's second leading jockey for 2016, will take the assignment that would have been Calvin Borel's in the Fantasy prior to his sudden retirement from racing March 29.

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Cosmic Evolution's trainer Lon Wiggins spoke of how the Proud Citizen   filly is coming into Saturday's race.

"It seems like a lot of things went wrong going into the last race," he said. "Everything seems to be going right going into this one."

Florida Bird, a Summer Bird filly, will contest the Fantasy off a fourth-place finish in the 6-furlong Rainbow Miss Stakes at Oaklawn on April 2.

Impasse, by Quality Road  , will run for trainer D. Wayne Lukas after a fourth-place finish in 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight at Oaklawn March 20.

Ready to Confess, fifth in the Martha Washington Stakes at Oaklawn in her most recent start on Feb. 6, rounds out the field for the Fantasy. She won her first start of the year, a one mile allowance optional claiming race at Oaklawn in January.