Story by B. Jason Brooks
Claiborne Farm sire Blame’s 3-year-old daughter Explora is entered for her next step on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks in Santa Anita Park’s one-mile Las Virgenes Stakes on Sunday, February 8th.
A finalist for the Eclipse Champion 2-Year-Old Filly and runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), Explora currently sits alone atop of the Kentucky Oaks leaderboard with 35 points and can add another 20 with a win on Sunday.
Explora is coming off launching her 3-year-old campaign in Santa Anita’s 7-furlong Santa Ynez Stakes on January 10th for trainer Bob Baffert. She was the trailer up the backstretch before advancing three wide around the far turn and easily taking the lead at the top of the stretch. Seemingly coasting down the lane, she drove clear to a hand-ridden 5¼-length win.
Guided by elite California-based jockey Juan Hernandez – who has been aboard her for all her career starts – he remarked after the race that “she is a really smart filly… [S]he went really easy today.” Mr. Hernandez will be aboard for her sixth start in the Las Virgenes.
Explora exited the race with a career record of three wins and two second-place finishes from five starts, with earnings of $628,000 for owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman.
As Chip Gehrke wrote in his Horse Racing Nation story following the race, “The win in the Santa Ynez reinforced what I already believed, that despite not yet having a top-level score, she is the best horse in this division right now… Explora should only improve as the distances increase, as her pedigree strongly suggests she will relish longer races. This filly appears to have an exciting future ahead of her.”
Explora burst into the juvenile fillies division in mid-August last year by debuting at five and a half furlongs at Del Mar. Going to the lead out of gate, she opened up around the far turn, being barely asked while pulling away to 4¾-length victory at Del Mar. The eye-catching win earned her a “Rising Star” tag from the Thoroughbred Daily News, a designation the publication awards to young horses after they demonstrate exceptional promise in one of their first few races to indicate they have a good chance of becoming graded stakes winners.
She stepped up to grade 1-company for her second career start in the Debutante Stakes (G1) going seven furlongs at Del Mar in early September. Repeating the front-running trip of her debut, she led from the start and fended off a challenge entering the stretch before giving way approaching the wire to stablemate Bottle of Rouge, by Vino Rosso.
Blame daughter bounced back in her first two-turn test in Santa Anita Park’s mile-and-a-sixteenth Oak Leaf Stakes (G2) in early October. Racing for the first time without blinkers, she settled off the lead in third going up the backstretch before advancing in the far turn and putting her five rivals away at the top of the stretch, drawing away to a stellar 4¼-length win.
Jumping back into elite grade 1-company for the mile-and-a-sixteenth Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at the end of October, she again tracked the pace until shifting out at the top of the stretch and displayed a strong kick, but came up three-quarters of a length behind Gun Runner filly Super Corredora, by Gun Runner, at the wire, settling for show honors.
Bred in Kentucky by Steve and Denise Smith’s Mesingw Farm, Explora was purchased for $22,000 by Rusty Roberts from the Warrendale Sales consignment at the 2024 Keenland September Yearling Sale. She was sold again at the 2025 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale, fetching a price of $350,000 from the Crane Thoroughbred Services consignment and purchased by her current owners.
Explora has the Hancock family’s Claiborne blood on the top and bottom of her pedigree. In addition to being sired by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider’s homebred 2010 Champion Older Horse and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, her damline traces back to the old Merry Maid, by Eolus, branch of Richard J. Hancock’s Ellerslie Stud foundation mare Mermaid, by St. Blaise (GB).
Beginning his 16th season at stud at Claiborne, Blame is the sire of 54 black-type stakes winners, including 25 graded and 7 of those grade 1 winners. His top earners include 2023 Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) winner Wet Paint, earner of over $1.3 million, 2018 Ballerina Stakes (G1) winner Marley’s Freedom, who won more than $1.2 million, and 2020 Arkansas Derby winner Nadal, who retired with just over $1 million and entered stud in 2021 at Shadai Stallion Station in Japan. In addition to Explora’s recent success, Blame’s Claiborne homebred 4-year-old daughter Admit broke through for her first graded win in October, taking Keeneland’s one-mile Valley View Stakes (G2). (For more on Admit, see the Claiborne blog story “Claiborne’s Admit Conquers Keeneland’s Grade 2 Valley View Stakes”.)
Explora immediate elite female family includes second dam Model, by Giant’s Causeway, who placed in the Spinster Stakes (G1) in 2008 and the Santa Maria Handicap (G1) and Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap (G1) in 2009. Explora’s third dam Snowfire (GB), by Machiavellian, was runner up in the 2002 English One Thousand Guineas and she is half to Preseli (IRE), by Caerleon, who won the 1999 Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1) in Ireland. All three of these black-type family members were homebred for Neil Jones’s Abergwaun Farm.
Recent U.S. graded stakes winners from the Merry Maid branch of Mermaid include Reddam Racing’s homebred Slow Down Andy, by Nyquist, winner of the 2023 Awesome Again Stakes (G1), and Miller Racing’s Venencia (FR), by Recoletos (FR), who won the 2025 Dowager Stakes (G3). Internationally, Godolphin’s homebred Dubai Beach (IRE) won Meydan’s Cape Verdi (G2) in the United Arab Emirates last month.
Despite Sunday’s Las Virgenes Stakes being a small field of only four entries, facing off against the above-mentioned champion filly Super Corredora will be the first significant test of Explora’s 2026 campaign on the Kentucky Oaks trail. Post time is 2:30 pm Pacific.
Jason Brooks is a Thoroughbred racing and pedigree researcher, writer, and social media manager residing in Saratoga Springs, New York.