by Frank Angst

While Eight Belles is cross-entered in the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (G1) and the Kentucky Oaks (G1), trainer Larry Jones has all but committed the gray or roan filly to the Derby.

Jones has said that Eight Belles would start in the Derby as long as the three-time stakes winner receives a good post. A respectable post was all but assured after the connections were awarded the sixth choice in this evening’s Derby draw, and JOnes selected post position five for Eight Belles.

Fox Hill Farms’ Eight Belles would be the 39th filly to compete in the Derby and the first since Excellent Meeting (fifth) and Three Ring (19th) in the 1999 edition. The Unbridled’s Song three-year-old will try to join Regret (1915), Genuine Risk (‘80), and Winning Colors (‘88), as the only fillies to win the Derby.

Last year Jones trained Fox Hill Farm’s Hard Spun, who finished second to Street Sense in the Derby.

“We came so close last year with Hard Spun,” said Fox Hill’s Rick Porter. “We do think she belongs, and we have a chance to make history.”

Eight Belles figures to receive a post position better than the post 12 she drew in the Kentucky Oaks, where she was installed as the 5-to-2 morning-line favorite. On Tuesday evening, Jones said with that post he would likely make Eight Belles the first filly to start in the Derby in the 21st century.

Eight Belles has registered four straight wins including three stakes scores at Oaklawn Park—the Martha Washington, Honeybee (G2), and Fantasy (G2) Stakes. Her speed figures have been competitive with this year’s top three-year-old males.

“You dream big and I think she fits numbers-wise,” Porter said. “If you don’t run, you can’t win. Right now, you don’t know how good Big Brown is, and no one is sure how good Eight Belles is either.”

A victory would make Eight Belles the second straight filly to win a Triple Crown race as Rags to Riches won last year’s Belmont Stakes (G1).

Jones also has entered Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) winner Proud Spell in the Kentucky Oaks. Jones said after a four-race juvenile campaign capped with a runner-up finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), the Proud Citizen filly thrived after she was given about three months off.

“That time off helped her a lot,” Jones said of the Brereton Jones homebred. “She came back strong and was the first filly to beat [two-year-old champion filly] Indian Blessing in the Fair Grounds Oaks.”

Frank Angst is senior writer of Thoroughbred Times