Mizumi stays perfect with Iowa Oaks win for Baffert

Mizumi kept her record perfect with a controlled 1 1/4-length victory in the $225,000 Iowa Oaks at Prairie Meadows, giving Bob Baffert another graded-stakes filly who has now answered every question asked of her. The 3-year-old filly won Race 7 on the July 10 card, a listed stakes for three-year-old fillies that helped anchor the Iowa Festival of Racing, which offered eight stakes worth $1.2 million over July 10-11.

Sent off at 3-5, Mizumi settled near the back while the pace held together in front of her, with fractions of :23.23, :46.93, 1:11.15 and 1:36.99 showing there was no collapse to chase. Florent Geroux started asking her to close at the quarter pole, and Mizumi steadily cut into Brooklyn Blonde before edging clear inside the final sixteenth. She covered 1 1/16 miles on a fast dirt track in 1:43.54, a professional effort that fit the way she has handled every step of her career.

Brooklyn Blonde held second and Knickleanddime was third. Shilling was the only other starter after Go to Girl and Grace Is Free were scratched. Mizumi returned $3.20 to win, a reflection of how the market had already locked onto her undefeated profile. Equibase listed Baoma Corp. as the winning owner, Bob Baffert as trainer, Charles Chu as breeder and Geroux as the rider.

The Iowa Oaks added another road trip to a résumé that already pointed upward. Mizumi broke her maiden at Santa Anita on May 2, winning a 6 1/2-furlong race in 1:16.64, then stretched out again in the June 13 Summertime Oaks and won that Grade III by 3 3/4 lengths in 1:43.41. The Summertime Oaks was her stakes debut and her graded-stakes debut, and it immediately marked her as more than a flashy debut winner.

Baffert had said after the Summertime Oaks that Mizumi had finally given him “a good Justify on the dirt,” and the Iowa Oaks gave that line more weight. She left Southern California, handled a different track, adapted to a fairer pace, and still produced the same finishing authority when the race got serious. For a young filly with a perfect 3-for-3 record, that combination makes the margin less important than the résumé it now supports.