Royal Spa scoring the Locust Grove at Churchill Downs. (Jenny Doyle/Past The Wire)
Robert Yates/Oaklawn Park
Improving Oaklawn allowance winner Royal Spa surpassed $1 million in career earnings with a front-running victory in the $400,000 Grade 2, Locust Grove Stakes Saturday at Churchill Downs.
Ridden by Tyler Gaffalione, Royal Spa finished 1 ¼ lengths ahead of Oaklawn-raced Alpine Princess in the 1 1/16-mile event for fillies and mares. The winning time over a fast track was 1:42.53. Royal Spa, recording her biggest career victory to date, was the 6-5 favorite in the six-horse field.
Rodolphe Brisset (two victories last season at Oaklawn) trains Royal Spa for her breeder, Rhonda O’Rourke’s Breffni Farm. O’Rourke’s husband, Garrett, is general manager of global breeding/racing juggernaut Juddmonte USA.
A 5-year-old Violence, Royal Spa has started six times at Oaklawn. In 2023, she won an allowance sprint before finishing ninth in the $600,000 G3-Fantasy Stakes. The Fantasy, worth a record $1 million in 2026, is Oaklawn’s biggest two-turn race for 3-year-old fillies.
Royal Spa ran in two sprint stakes for older fillies and mares at the 2023-2024 Oaklawn meeting, crossing the finish line second in the $150,000 American Beauty and third in the $250,000 Matron.
Royal Spa made two more sprint stakes starts last season at Oaklawn, finishing third in the $150,000 Poinsettia Dec. 21 and fourth in the inaugural $145,000 Bugler Overnight Jan. 25. The Bugler, for non-stakes winners, was one of nine overnight black-type events added to the 2024-2025 Oaklawn schedule.
Since the Bugler, Royal Spa has captured three stakes races. In addition to the Locust Grove, she won the $100,000 Heavenly Cause at one mile April 12 at Laurel and the $275,000 G3-Shawnee at 1 1/16 miles May 31 at Churchill Downs.
Royal Spa has a 7-4-2 record from 21 lifetime starts and earnings of $1,096,732.
Other top horses trained by Brisset include Oaklawn stakes winners Yuugiri and Quip and Oaklawn-raced Mullikin. All three horses are millionaires.
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Stall applications for Oaklawn’s 2025-2026 season are due Thursday. The stable area opens Oct. 23, and the track opens for training Oct. 28. The 64-day meeting is scheduled to run Dec. 12-May 2. …
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Oaklawn all-time leading trainer Steve Asmussen enters Tuesday with a record 10,977 career North American victories, according to Equibase, racing’s official data gathering organization. Asmussen has 993 career Oaklawn victories.
