Avana will looking for her seventh consecutive win Tuesday when she takes on graded winner V V’s Dream in the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks.
The 1 1/16-mile race is one of seven stakes on the Land of Enchantment card, worth a cumulative $1.1 million.
Avana is part of a field that has been scratched down from 11 to nine with the defections of Grade 2 winner Chatalas and stakes winner Arctic Breeze.
Avana was to have flown in Friday from Pleasanton in California, where she has been working for trainer Blaine Wright after being based in Western Canada with trainer Barbara Heads. Avana races for Peter Redekop.
“She came down to me in good shape and has three pretty forward works on the Pleasanton track here,” Wright said Wednesday. “This is a race they’ve had in mind for her for quite a long time.”
Avana is unbeaten on dirt. She debuted on turf and finished fifth before moving to the main track and reeling off six straight wins, her last five in stakes in Western Canada. She is a British Columbia-bred by Vino Rosso and is coming off a win at three turns in the British Columbia Oaks.
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Avana has been ridden throughout her streak by Amadeo Perez, who has come in from Canada to ride the filly.
“Barb had told me she’s a big, heavy filly that’s pretty plain and docile when it comes to training and she turns it up when the racing starts,” Wright said. “Amadeo told me the same thing. Amadeo said she’s very nonchalant about training in the morning.”
Avana will be looking to give Redekop and Wright a Zia Oaks win to go with their Zia Derby win of 2014 with Alert Bay. She will break from post 3.
“It looks like there’s a fair amount of speed in the race,” Wright said. “Amadeo knows the horse better than me and he said he can pretty much place her wherever she needs to be.”
Xena, who has won her last two starts wire to wire, figures to be prominent, as do sprint-to-route prospects Candy Aisle and V V’s Dream. Last year, V V’s Dream won the Grade 3 Pocahontas at a mile at Churchill Downs.
“She’s coming off a couple of sprints and I think she’s going to appreciate the little more [ground],” said trainer Kenny McPeek, who won this year’s Kentucky Oaks with Thorpedo Anna. “She’s a lovely filly.”
Brian Hernandez Jr., the regular rider of Thorpedo Anna, has the mount from post 7.
McPeek also sends out Under the Palms, with Emmanuel Esquivel to ride from post 9.
“She’s a stakes winner in Indiana,” McPeek said. “She kind of had a troubled trip in her last race.”
Trainer Steve Asmussen also has two starters in the Zia Oaks in Xena and Lemonesse.
Candy Aisle is a three-time stakes winner for trainer Todd Fincher. She won the Zia Princess on last year's Land of Enchantment Day.
Zia Championship
Denington is a fresh face on the scene for the $125,000 Zia Championship, a 1 1/16-mile race that has drawn regional stakes winners Mine That Star and Unload.
Denington is making his first start since May, when he closed from some 20 lengths back for fourth in a one-turn mile allowance at Churchill Downs.
“This is a horse that always runs well and he needs things to set up a little bit better for him,” McPeek said. “But he always tries hard. We gave him a nice, long break, and conditions-wise, he’s hard to find a spot for. He’s training super.”
Mine That Star won the $200,000 Downs at Albuquerque Handicap over some of these last out, while Unload accounted for Remington Park’s premier route race for older horses, the Governor’s Cup, in August.
Zia Sprint
Jaxon Traveler is back to defend his title in the $100,000 Zia Sprint, a six-furlong race he won last year in a blazing time of 1:07.37. He enters in peak from, as he has won an allowance and the David M. Vance in his last two starts, both at Remington Park.
Jaxon Traveler became a millionaire in the Vance. Ortiz has the mount for West Point Thoroughbreds and Asmussen.
◗ Holly Dolly will be looking for her fifth straight win when she starts in the $100,000 Distaff at six furlongs. She, too, has won a stakes this meet at Remington. Iram Diego has the mount for trainer Ray Ashford Jr.
◗ Ring Seeker seeks the third stakes win of his young career in the $100,000 Juvenile.
◗ Saratoga maiden winner Reliable Source meets Southern California invader Going Deep in the $100,000 Princess.
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