(Counting Stars / Photo by Coady Media)

From the Oaklawn Park Media Team / Robert Yates:

$300,000 Martha Washington Stakes

West Point Thoroughbreds’ Counting Stars bids for her third stakes victory this season at Oaklawn in Friday’s $300,000 Martha Washington for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles.

Probable post time for the Martha Washington, the sixth of 12 races, is 1:59 p.m. CST. Racing begins at 11:30 a.m.

The Martha Washington is Oaklawn’s first of three qualifying races for the Kentucky Oaks and will offer 42 total points to its top five finishers (20-10-6-4-2, respectively) toward starting eligibility for the country’s biggest prize for 3-year-old fillies.

The Martha Washington was originally scheduled to be run Jan. 31, but Oaklawn moved its Jan. 30, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 programs to this week following a winter storm that closed the track for training for nine days.

Counting Stars and Search Party, both trained by dual Hall of Famer Mark Casse, are among eight Martha Washington entrants.

Counting Stars, the 5-2 second choice in the program, has won three of four lifetime starts. She’s two-for-two in 2025-2026 at Oaklawn, claiming the inaugural $135,000 Astral Spa Stakes at six furlongs Dec. 14 and the $150,000 Year’s End Stakes at one mile Dec. 27 in her two-turn debut. Counting Stars has won her two Oaklawn starts by a combined 10 lengths.

“Counting Stars has been very impressive,” Casse said. “It was her first time around two turns. I thought she would two-turn, but she got a little excited in the middle of the race, was wide, and just kind of ran by everybody and opened up.”

Earlier on the Dec. 27 card – Oaklawn’s fourth annual exclusively for 2-year-olds – Search Party broke her maiden by six front-running lengths over stablemate Rockin Robin at 1 1/16 miles. Search Party, who races for her breeder, Tracy Farmer, is 3-1 on the morning line for her stakes debut.

“I thought Search Party, she’d been very unlucky in a couple of previous starts,” Casse said. “Things kind of went her way. I thought she won impressively. We like Rockin Robin as well and she was second. She was a long ways in front of the third horse, which is always good to see. So, I expect her to run well.”

Hit Parade is 5-2 program favorite for trainer Brad Cox, who swept Oaklawn’s Kentucky Oaks prep series in 2023 with Wet Paint. Hit Parade, a homebred for Gary and Mary West, has won her last three starts, including the Untapable Stakes at 1 mile and 70 yards Dec. 20 at Fair Grounds to close her 2-year-old campaign.

Another Martha Washington entrant, Grace Is Free, will be making her two-turn debut for trainer Robert N. Cline. Grace Is Free gave Cline and longtime significant other, jockey Kelsi Harr, their first Oaklawn stakes victory in the $150,000 Mockingbird at six furlongs Jan. 4.

Grace Is Free races for her breeder, retired trainer Larry Jones, a three-time Kentucky Oaks winner. Jones, as a trainer, won the second division of the 2008 Martha Washington with Eight Belles, whose margin of victory (13 ½ lengths) remains the most lopsided in race history. The Martha Washington was run at one mile in 2004-2021.