Most people seem to think that the Kentucky Oaks race is wide open this year and a very tough race to analyze but if you look at pace information in TimeformUS, Racing Flow, and OptixEQ a clear picture unfolds and the most likely winner and best value plays emerge from the confusion. See the table below showing some pace information for selected Oaks preps. Note that Zany was in a race that was as unfavorable to closers as possible (CFR of 1 on 1-100 scale of favorability to closers) and was run with the short Keeneland stretch (first wire). Her other 2026 prep was in a prep with a CFR of only 3, which she still won easily! She will get a much better setup in the Oaks with a TimeformUS pace projector predicting a fast pace. Her fastest race as a 2yo (113 TFUS) was as fast or faster than any of the Oaks contenders have run as 3yos. Her 3yo races have not earned fast figs because of the same slow paces that compromised her chances of winning as a closer. Zany is clearly the most likely winner of the Oaks. Lovely Grey and Search Party are two others that have been extremely compromised by slow paces and tough trips in their 2 most recent preps and should run much better with the expected much faster pace in the Oaks and will likely offer value in most pools. You can get additional confirmation of this from the OptixEQ plot of the race which shows Zany as a huge square in the middle of the plot and Search Party and Lovely Grey as relatively large squares in Quadrant 4. Zany, Lovely Grey, and Search Party are probably the three key horses to use if you want to unlock some value in this year’s Kentucky Oaks. You can get more information from TimeformUS PPs for the race and from racingflow.com and OptiexEQ.com. Good luck and enjoy the races.