The Grade 1, $1.25 million Apple Blossom Handicap Saturday at Oaklawn Park drew a field of seven older females with all eyes on 2024 Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna, who made short work of her competition when winning the Grade 2 Azeri Stakes last month.

The Azeri victory bringing Thorpedo Anna’s career earnings to more than $4 million while winning nine of 11 career races and finishing second in the other two. Next in terms of achievements among the entrants for the 1 1/16-mile Apple Blossom is Free Like a Girl, a very consistent mare with 34 first- or second-place finishes in 49 career starts and more than $2.2 million in purse earnings. In her most recent race, Free Like a Girl was clearly second in the Azeri. Where’s My Ring is a 4-year-old with just two wins, but both were huge efforts, including the Grade 3 Gazelle Stakes last year and a 12 ¼-length romp last month at Oaklawn. Wild Bout Hillary has won six of 13 including the Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn when last seen in February. Neom Beach missed by a head in the Valley of the Vapors Stakes at Oaklawn last year as a 3-year-old but enters the race off sixth- and eighth-place efforts in stakes races. Sweet Alyssa won the Opelousas Stakes last July but has finished fourth and ninth in her two races this year. Noble Miss rounds out the field, returning from a year on the sidelines and running in a stakes race for the first time.

Top Contenders:

Reigning Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna is arguably the best horse training in North America right now — among males and females — and it is fantastic she is campaigning as a 4-year-old after a stellar 2024 campaign that saw her win six of seven, including the Cotillion Stakes and Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff in succession last summer and fall, not to mention capturing the Longines Kentucky Oaks. Her two best efforts in terms of how fast she ran came in the DraftKings Travers Stakes, in which Thorpedo Anna lost a heartbreaker to Fierceness when facing males for the first time, earning a 111 Equibase Speed Figure, and in the Distaff, where she duplicated that figure. Making her 2025 debut last month in the Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn, where she had won the Fantasy Stakes last year before the Kentucky Oaks, Thorpedo Anna earned a 105 speed figure that is very likely to be improved upon in her second start following four months off. Thorpedo Anna can win leading from the start and from off the pace, the latter scenario more likely with a very fresh Noble Miss in the race, being off for a year and being a sprinter, and with Wild Bout Hilary having earned her last two wins, both in stakes, leading from start to finish.

 Where’s My Ring just ran the best race of her career which, if repeated, could prove good enough to post the upset win over Thorpedo Anna. Highly regarded since her debut in August 2023, Where’s My Ring was entered in the 2023 NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, finishing eighth. Three races later and still not having earned her first win, Where’s My Ring finished second in the Santa Ysabel Stakes a little over a year ago. She skipped facing Thorpedo Anna when entered, then scratched, from last year’s Fantasy Stakes. Where’s My Ring broke her maiden in the Gazelle Stakes April 6, 2024, before a 10^th-place effort behind Thorpedo Anna in the Kentucky Oaks. Taking time off from last July until February, Where’s My Ring returned and finished third in a sprint, which was nothing more than a tightener after the extended layoff. She then crushed a field of nine four weeks ago at Oaklawn and at 1 1/16-mile distance of the Apple Bossom. Establishing the lead from the start through moderate fractions, Where’s My Ring accelerated through the six-furlong mark and throughout the rest of the race with 89 and 93 pace figures before earning a stellar 116 Equibase Speed Figure when winning by 12 ¼ lengths. Jockey Francisco Arrieta was aboard for the first time in that win and rides back. With that 116 figure better than any Thorpedo Anna has earned in her career and with improvement likely in her third start (and second route) of the year, Where’s My Ring has a legitimate shot to post the upset and win this year’s Apple Blossom Stakes.

Honorable mention must go to Free Like a Girl, who just always shows up when stepping onto the racetrack. She’s run 49 times to date, amassing 21 wins and 13 runner-up finishes, including when second to Wild Bout Hilary in the Bayakoa Stakes in February and to Thorpedo Anna in the Azeri Stakes. Free Like a Girl earned 98 and 100 speed figures in those races, with her best ever a 111 in a graded stakes in January 2024.

The rest of the field (with best representative Equibase Speed Figure): Noble Miss (83), Noem Beach (99), Sweet Alyssa (94), and Wild Bout Hilary (102).

Win Contenders:

Where’s My Ring

Thorpedo Anna

Free Like a Girl