Tam Tam seeks first graded win in Regret Stakes stalking trip

Tam Tam entered the Regret Stakes with a clear assignment: use her speed without getting trapped in a front-running fight. Phil Bauer wanted the 3-year-old filly to sit off the pace and have a target, a tactical shift that could determine whether she turned promise into her first graded stakes win.

The setup looked right on paper. Tam Tam was the 5-2 morning-line favorite in the 57th running of the Grade 3 turf race for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/8 miles at Churchill Downs. She drew post 9 in a nine-filly field, with Junior Alvarado named to ride, and the race was placed as Race 9 on Stephen Foster Preview Day, one of seven stakes on the card carrying $1.975 million in purses. The Regret went off at 4:56 p.m. Eastern.

Bauer’s perspective on Tam Tam has been built around timing and placement. Churchill Downs said she had won two of three starts this year after being moved to turf at Gulfstream Park, and Bauer said she had shown ability as a 2-year-old but was frustrating before the surface switch. He also said she had natural gate speed, while making clear he preferred not to see her on the lead. That is the kind of nuance handicappers watch closely in turf stakes, where a filly who can stalk often gets the best version of the race: close enough to control position, but not asked to do all the early work.

Her resume supported the confidence. Tam Tam won the Sanibel Island Stakes at Gulfstream on March 28, then came within a head of Imaginationthelady in the Edgewood Stakes on May 24. That Edgewood finish, a tight four-way scramble, showed she belonged with graded company even before she broke through. The broader case for Tam Tam was straightforward: if she could relax and finish, the next step was a graded victory and a bigger summer campaign.

The race did not unfold that way. Faithful Departed won the Regret, Storm’s Wake was second, and Tam Tam finished third in 1:46.23. The result fit the central question around her: the talent was real, but the trip mattered even more. Bauer wanted a stalking run to unlock her best chance at black type, and the Regret showed exactly why that adjustment could be the difference between a promising filly and a graded winner.