Currently fourth on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks leaderboard, Good Cheer puts her 4-for-4 record on the line Saturday when she faces five other talented fillies in the $300,000 Rachel Alexandra Stakes (G2) at Fair Grounds.
At 1 1/16 miles, the Rachel Alexandra offers 50 points to the winner with the remaining 55 divided amongst the next four finishers. Along with being the local steppingstone to the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) on March 22, the Rachel Alexandra (or one of its previous iterations) is on the resumes of eight Kentucky Oaks winners since its inception in 1982.
Good Cheer, by Medaglia d’Oro out of the Street Sense mare Wedding Toast, will be making her 2025 debut in the Rachel Alexandra and her first start at the Fair Grounds. The filly is the 6-5 morning-line favorite.
Good Cheer. Coady Photo.
Undefeated Good Cheer set for her 2025 debut
She won all of 2024 races by open lengths, including her 8 ¼-length debut going a mile at Indiana Horseshoe and a 17-length score in a 1 1/16-mile allowance at Churchill Downs. Her two stakes wins were equally facile, winning the Rags to Riches by 4 ¾ lengths and the Goldenrod (G2) by 17 lengths, both at Churchill Downs. (If you’re counting, that’s 32 ½ lengths).
“I really love how she’s doing,” said her trainer, Brad Cox, who has won three of the past seven editions of the Rachel Alexandra. “I know it’s typical trainer talk, but she is training well. We’ve had her down at Payson Park training her. She gets through that track very well. I think if you can get through that track and you’re working well, galloping out well, you can normally take your show on the road.”
Cox, who also trains Immersive – the 2-year-old filly champion but currently sidelined with an injury — and the highly regarded Muhimma, is hopeful Good Cheer will show up as a 3-year-old the way she did at 2.
“It’s not a big field, but I think it’s a very good group of 3-year-old fillies,” said Cox, who won the Rachel Alexndra last year with Tarifa, in 2022 with Turnerlose and in 2018 with Monomoy Girl, who went on to win the Kentucky Oaks and the Eclipse Award as the nation’s top 3-year-old filly. “And a lot of people know that this path through New Orleans is a very good path toward having success in the Kentucky Oaks.”
Good Cheer will be facing one less tough opponent Saturday, with Ballerina d’Oro, second in the Demoiselle (G2), having been declared out by trainer Chad Brown because of a fever.
Chief among them is Simply Joking (4-1), the Whit Beckman trainee who has won both her starts – and both in stakes – in impressive fashion while giving the impression there’s much more to come.
The daughter of Practical Joke began by taking the Letellier Memorial in gritty fashion, bumping the side of the gate at the start, falling back early and then coming on to outduel favored Whata Moon and win by a neck.
She opened her sophomore season in a much less eventful manner, handling two turns with aplomb in going wire to wire by score by 2 ½ lengths.
Also lining up will be a pair from trainer Kenny McPeek in Anonima (6-1), winner of two of her four starts, and Gowells Delight (12-1), who looked sharp breaking her maiden by 5 ½ lengths and next finished fourth in the Martha Washington after encountering traffic problems in the stretch.
Rounding out the field are Bless the Broken, who, while winless since breaking her maiden last July, was second to Simply Joking in the Silverbulletday and seventh behind Muhimma in the Demoiselle (G2), and Aledean, winner of two of his four starts for trainer Tom Amoss.
For those who bet horse racing …
The picks: 1 Simply Joking 2 Good Cheer 3 Anonima
The field for the $300,000 Rachel Alexandra Stakes (G2), from the rail out, with jockey, trainer, odds:
1 Anonima (Irad Ortiz, Jr., Kenny McPeek), 6-1
2 Good Cheer (Luis Saez, Brad Cox), 6-5
3 Ballerina d’Oro (Flavien Prat, Chad Brown), scratched
4 Gowells Delight (Brian Hernandez, Jr., Kenny McPeek), 12-1
5 Aledean (Edgar Morales, Tom Amoss), 15-1
6 Simply Joking (Jaime Torres, Whit Beckman), 4-1
7 Bless the Broken (Axel Concepcion, Will Walden), 12-1
The writing team at US Racing is comprised of both full-time and part-time contributors with expertise in various aspects of the Sport of Kings.
