Room Service shows touch of class in American Oaks

Room Service shows touch of class in American Oaks

Although Kissin Lucky Lips and Tiz the Key spurted away from Sweet Bliss at

the mile mark in 1:36 3/5, the closers were on the march, especially Room

Service. Tiz the Key briefly held the advantage between calls at the top of the

lane, but Room Service rolled right past her to complete 1 1/4 miles in 2:01

1/5.

"It's always worth the trip when you win," Catalano said of the Kentucky

shipper, "and it's super weather, anyway. I thought everything in the race was

unfolding like I expected it to. Going a mile and a quarter, I didn't think

she'd get too far back. We were very happy to see the position she was in. When

Shaun pulled the trigger and moved a little bit to get a jump on the horses, I

thought it was a good move."

"We had a perfect trip -- it really set up well for her style of running,"

Bridgmohan said. "We obviously wanted a little pace to run at and we got it. I

happened to work her on the grass at Churchill (five furlongs on May 6) and

she's got a great turn of foot on it. She showed that here today."

Diversy Harbor did her best work late to grab second by a neck from Little

Journey, despite a checkered passage.

"We got tangled up with Doug O'Neill's filly (Loan Savant), and my filly

kinda got turned sideways," Hall of Famer Mike Smith said of his trip aboard

Diversy Harbor. "I'd like to have a clean run at them next time but this might

be best in the long run. She settled real well today and made a big run, which

is what she needs to do."

Tiz the Key tired to fourth, followed by Nashoba's Gold, Kissin Lucky Lips,

Loan Savant and Sweet Bliss.

Jockey Joe Talamo commented on his troubled trip with Nashoba's Gold.

"It got a little tight around the quarter-pole," Talamo said. "I was going

for a spot, but that's horse racing. I really had a good trip up to that point.

Actually, me and the winner were kind of moving at the same point. I was going

for a hole but they just had a little more momentum and we got squeezed a little

bit out of there. I don't know if we'd have won today, but I think we'd have

definitely hit the board. It cost her a lot of momentum."

Room Service, who paid $6.40 to win, now sports a mark of 7-4-1-2, $546,565.

The bay daughter of More Than Ready competed exclusively on turf until the

Ashland. She broke her maiden in her debut at Kentucky Downs last September and

followed with a pair of placings against allowance company in her next two at

Churchill and Gulfstream. A rallying third in the January 26 Sweetest Chant in

her first stakes attempt, she broke through in the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride on

March 2.

Switching to Polytrack for the Ashland, Room Service closed from last in a

13-filly field and dead-heated with Rosalind, the pair drawing seven lengths

clear of third. The American Oaks result boosted the Ashland form, at least from

an American perspective, just as Rosalind prepares to take on Europe's top

three-year-old filly milers in the June 20 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.

"She's mainly a grass horse, but she will handle synthetics pretty well,"

Catalano noted. "We'll talk over plans for what's next with Mr. and Mrs. West

and make a decision.

"It was great to be in California with the Wests. The way it worked out, you

couldn't have written a better script. We came to Mr. West's hometown and

decided to win a race."

The Kentucky-bred Room Service is maintaining the perfect record of her dam,

the multiple Grade 3-placed, stakes-winning Old Trieste mare Dream Lady, whose

three foals of racing age are all graded stakes performers. Her first foal,

Grade 3 scorer Major Gain, is a full brother to Room Service. Next came Grade

2-placed stakes winner Oscar Party.

Dream Lady counts as a half-sibling stakes vixen Zeta, the dam of Argentinean

Group 1 winner Zapata. Room Service's third dam is Grade 3 diva London Lil, who

produced Grade 3 heroine Lilly Capote and multiple stakes queen Bubba Dulyah.

Lilly Capote is herself the dam of Grade 1 victress Aubby K as well as Grade

2-placed full brothers Flying Pegasus and Mythical Pegasus.

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