by Steve Bailey

Darley Stable’s Raw Silk will try for her second consecutive graded stakes triumph as she tackles 11 challengers in the $750,000 American Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1) on Saturday at Hollywood Park.

The three-year-old Malibu Moon filly enters the 1 1/4-mile turf test off a 4 1/4-length victory in the Sands Point Stakes (G2) on May 31 at Belmont Park for trainer Tom Albertrani.

Raw Silk worked five furlongs in :59.40 on Cushion Track on Wednesday under exercise rider Fidel Santiago with Fidel Amezcua, groom for Albertrani, watching intently.

“She did it nice and easy,” said Amezcua, who last visited Hollywood Park when he worked for Bill Mott during the 1997 Breeders’ Cup. “She’s gone to the front in all her races; she likes it that way.”

Chief among her competitors should be Grade 2 winner Pure Clan, who has hit the board in all four of her starts this season for trainer Bob Holthus, including a victory in the Regret Stakes (G3) in her previous start on June 14 at Churchill Downs.

In her other starts this season, the three-year-old Pure Prize filly, who won last year’s Golden Rod Stakes (G2) at the historic Louisville track, finished second to Eight Belles in the Honey Bee Stakes (G3), third behind Eight Belles in the Fantasy Stakes (G2), and third behind Proud Spell in the Kentucky Oaks (G1).

  Nine of the 12 entrants for the American Oaks have arrived from out of state: two from New York, three from Kentucky, two from England, one from Ireland, and one from France.

  Trainer Jane Chapple-Hyam walked Annie Skates outside Barn 50 in the isolation area on Wednesday after the filly jogged the previous morning.
 
  The three-year-old Mr. Greeley filly enters off a third-place finish in the Lord Weinstock Memorial Stakes at Newbury on June 12. She previously raced in the United States in October, finishing second in the Epitome Stakes on the Breeders’ Cup undercard at Monmouth Park.
 
  Three other European entrants—Carribean Sunset from Ireland, Satan’s Circus from France, and Zaskar from England—are scheduled to clear quarantine on Thursday.

  The American Oaks headlines five graded stakes races worth a total of $2.2-million on Saturday’s card.

Steve Bailey is deputy news editor of Thoroughbred Times