Silsita upsets Bourbonette Oaks

The pair battled it out through the lane, passing the lead back and forth,

before Silsita got the head-bobbing win on the wire in a final time of 1:38 1/5

over Turfway Park's Polytrack.

"Pretty easy trip,

we broke well and we wanted to be where we were following somebody and it was

perfect," jockey John Velazquez said of his ride on Silsita. "I was trying to get her to slow down the first part of the race and she

did that nicely. She's showed improvement each time I've ridden her."

Marathon Lady was game in defeat as the 31-1 ninth pick. The last-out maiden

winner had three lengths to spare on a geared-down Pure Fun, who returned in

this spot off a triumph in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet back on December 8.

"She ran great," said Marathon Lady's trainer, Steve Hobby.

"We'll more than likely head back to Hot Springs and make plans from there. I

knew she was going to run a nice race and I was very happy that she was sitting

where she was in the race. (Jockey) Robby (Albarado) did a great job with her. The head bob wasn't

ours, but that's racing. I wasn't sure (if the head bob was ours)."

"It could have been a little of everything," Gomez mused about Pure Fun's

run. "It was her first race back. The racetrack doesn't have any water on it.

It's real loose and cuppy. It probably doesn't suit her style of racing. She's a

little more blocky -- kind of a muscle-bound thing.

"We're starting the day off right!" enthused Ginny DePasquale, whose been an

assistant to Pletcher for 16 years. "It's very exciting to see this filly jump

up and win like this.

"She seems to be a turf filly and some horses seem to take to the Poly. It

seemed like a good spot and Todd felt that she was improving over a period of

time in Florida. So we thought we'd take a shot and obviously it worked out

quite well."

Silsita returned a month later, giving way late to be third in a one-mile

grass contest at the same venue, and boosted her earnings following Saturday's

affair to $84,725. She also earned 50 points on the new Road to the Kentucky

Oaks point system while improving her line to 4-2-0-1.

"I'm sure the (Grade 1)

Kentucky Oaks is up to Todd and the owners," DePasquale added. "Whatever they

have in mind, I'm sure, they're going to make the right decision for her."

The Florida-bred filly is the first stakes winner of the multiple-stakes

placed Wild Again mare Naturally Wild, who is herself a daughter of multiple

stakes queen Nat's Lea. Silsita's fifth dam, Two Lea's Girl, is a half-sister to

1958 champion three-year-old Tim Tam, who captured that year's Kentucky Derby

and Preakness while running second in the Belmont Stakes.

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