As I've mentioned before, I first fell in love with thoroughbreds in 1973 when I was sitting in my living room with my family, reading a book, and someone nudged me and said, "Who do you think will win the Derby?" I looked up and Secretariat was striding out, looking like Secretariat. I was hooked. Now this is the first year that I share a descendant of Secretariat as part of my family! So, watching this year's Oaks is very exciting! Here are my choices:
1) Rags to Riches; 2) Cotton Blossom; 3) Dreaming of Anna. These are the three filies most closely related to Violet. They are related to her many different ways, but the big selling point is that they all share Blushing Groom! I like Dreaming of Anna because she has a NOLA trainer and a big earning record of $1,225,040 6:4-1-1. She is a 5-1 favorite, but has not run since February and has not won this year! Cotton Blossom has nice associations too with Traffic Court and some Dixie sorts of relatives. Cotton Blossom has a 7:3-2-1 record, $386,780, and has Barbaro's jockey who won the Eclipse Award. Her breeder likes thoroughbreds, but also Paints, Quarter Horses, and Arabs! And then Rags to Riches is the very favorite at 5-2 with a 4:3-0-0 record and $330,000. She's won everything she's been in this year! But I'm not thrilled with her because her trainer has two other horses in the race and the jockey had substance abuse problems in 2002. But, I'm still picking her for first because she looks the most like my beautiful Violet!!! Rags to Riches even has Violet's weird sexy splashy white blaze. She's the one for me!
