Vive Veuve rallies late to win Ouija Board Distaff Stakes

Vive Veuve did more than add another black-type line to her page. She showed that she can lose a little ground, make a run, and still finish a mile the right way, which is the sort of performance that keeps a mare useful in the summer stakes cycle.

The 5-year-old daughter of Collected out of Candy Store by Lope de Vega won the $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff Stakes at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, after the race was taken off the turf and run on a fast main track. Irad Ortiz Jr. guided the Carl R. Moore Management, LLC runner to a half-length win over Tizawiz, with Multiplication another 3 1/4 lengths back in third. The mile came up in 1:38.88, and the 6-5 favorite paid $4.40 to win. The race, listed by Equibase for 3-year-olds and up fillies and mares, went off at 6:42 p.m. with Fantastical, Moonlight Gambler, Miwa (GB) and Ziti (FR) scratched.

For bettors, the numbers were tidy enough, even if the surface change made the puzzle trickier. The exacta returned $28.20, the trifecta $21.80, and the 10-cent superfecta paid $11.33. For Joe Sharp, the bigger takeaway is that Vive Veuve is not a one-trick horse. She now has 20 starts, 5 wins, 3 seconds and 5 thirds, with earnings up to $725,855, and this was her second stakes victory. She has already raced in Ireland and North America, and that kind of durability matters when a mare has to keep showing up against different setups and different pace shapes.

The timing also mattered for Collected. Thought Process had already given him his first Grade 1 win as a sire in the Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita, and Vive Veuve followed with another stakes score on dirt the same Memorial Day weekend. That is the kind of surface range breeders pay attention to, especially from a stallion whose 2026 fee was listed at $7,500 with a live foal guarantee and whose progeny earnings were said to top $21 million from five crops of racing age. A sire does not just need winners, he needs winners that can stretch into more than one lane.

The Ouija Board Distaff has been around since 1976, and its record book still belongs to Wasted Tears, who stopped the clock in 1:32.81 in 2009. Neom Beach won the 2025 edition by 6 1/2 lengths in 1:39.36 on turf. Vive Veuve did not touch those benchmarks, but she gave Sharp a mare whose mile game now looks sturdy enough to aim higher, whether that means another dirt stakes or a better-placed shot when the right turf spot comes back around.