Counting Stars Dominates Fantasy Stakes, Eyes Kentucky Oaks Favoritism

The Fantasy Stakes has become something of a proven Oaks pipeline: in 2024, Thorpedo Anna won the race by four lengths, earned a 101 Beyer, and went on to dominate the Kentucky Oaks by 4¾ lengths at Churchill Downs. The following year, Quietside won the Fantasy by three-quarters of a length and arrived in Louisville as a principal Oaks contender. Counting Stars just made a compelling case to continue the tradition.

The three-year-old filly by Honor A.P., trained by Mark Casse and owned by West Point Thoroughbreds, won the Grade 2, $1 million Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Friday by 5½ lengths, earning 75 Kentucky Oaks qualifying points and drawing the kind of performance that reshapes morning-line conversations. Francisco Arrieta settled her comfortably in second behind 41-1 longshot Empath, tipped out turning for home, and she drew clear to win in 1:44.47 over one and one-sixteenth miles. The 92 Beyer Speed Figure she earned ranks among the stronger numbers posted by Oaks contenders this winter and spring.

"She was feeling good," Arrieta said after the race. "It's very exciting to have a Kentucky Oaks candidate."

The Fantasy, the richest Kentucky Oaks prep in the country this year, came to Casse with a footnote: it was his first victory in the race. He also trains Search Party, who finished second, while Taken by the Wind completed the trifecta. Counting Stars is a three-time stakes winner, having taken Oaklawn's Astral Spa Overnight in December and the Year's End Stakes later that month. West Point Thoroughbreds purchased her for $150,000 at the 2025 OBS Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in training, a price that now looks like a working-capital bargain.

The tactical picture for a 14-horse Oaks field deserves scrutiny. Counting Stars operated Friday in a five-horse field shaped by the late scratch of Explora, the even-money morning-line favorite whose absence softened the early pace considerably. In an Oaks with deeper speed and tighter quarters, she won't be handed the same patient, clean trip she enjoyed at Oaklawn. That vulnerability is real. The counterargument is her Honor A.P. pedigree, which points toward improvement as the ground stretches from the Fantasy's one and one-sixteenth miles to the Oaks' one and one-eighth. The manner in which she accelerated through the stretch, with Arrieta barely asking, suggested she had more to give.

Her two most prominent rivals heading into April carry their own prep question marks. Life of Joy, the early Oaks favorite by virtue of an unbeaten record, is targeting the Grade 1 Ashland at Keeneland on April 3. She Be Smooth, trained by Todd Pletcher, posted a 91 Beyer winning the Grade 2 Davona Dale at one mile and remains among the fillies to beat on raw points. Neither has yet been tested at the Oaks distance, and neither produced a margin anywhere near what Counting Stars put up in the country's richest Oaks prep.

Casse now holds options on where to run her before the May 1 gate opens at Churchill Downs. If Counting Stars ships to Louisville in comparable form, the 75 points she collected Friday won't be the most important number she carried to the paddock. The 5½ lengths will be.