Untapable win overshadowed by bombshell announcement

ARCADIA, Calif. – Talk about going out with a bang!

It was no surprise that Kentucky Oaks winner Untapable, the 8-5 favorite, captured Friday's $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff, doing so by 1-1/4 lengths over the late-running Don't Tell Sophia. No, the bomber came when jockey Rosie Napravnik in the winner's circle announced on national TV that she is pregnant and is retiring after Saturday's Breeders' Cup races at Santa Anita.

Her mom, also on the podium, threw her hands up to her face in shock and awe before the announced crowd of 37,205.

"I am announcing my retirement starting on Sunday," Napravnik said in the post-race press conference. "My husband Joe and I are going to be starting a family. His career is brand new and thriving, so it's good timing. He's going to step into the limelight, and I'm going to step out."

Joe Sharp this fall started his own stable after working as an assistant to trainer Mike Maker. Based in Louisville this fall, he's won nine of his first 19 starts, with three seconds and a third.

Napravnik, who has four Breeders' Cup mounts Saturday, added a qualifier to her retirement: "It's indefinite," she said. "I'm not thinking about a comeback in 10 months, but I can't promise to stay off a horse forever."

Napravnik didn't actually say she was pregnant until asked if she would have retired had she not won a Breeders' Cup race. She said she is seven weeks pregnant.

"My plan was to wait until after the weekend," she said of the announcement. "And I don't know if I had won on another horse if I would have said anything. This filly has just been very special to me. And it's a very special way to go out."

The 26-year-old Napravnik became the first female to win more than one Breeders' Cup race. She won the 2012 Juvenile here on Shanghai Bobby. And in her only other Cup mount Friday, she was second on Tapiture, who like Untapable is by the Gainesway Farm stallion Tapit.

Untapable became only the third filly to win the Kentucky Oaks and the Distaff. Ashado also swept the two races in 2004. Princess Rooney, the 1983 Oaks winner, captured the inaugural Distaff the next year.

"What a tremendous feeling to be involved with this filly all year long, and the races she's giving us and how good she is," said trainer Steve Asmussen, whose parents give all of owner-breeder Ron Winchell's thoroughbreds their earliest training. "…. To be able to participate on this stage, under these circumstances, with a homebred as brilliant as Untapable, it's what you dream about as a little kid."

Napravnik gave Untapable a dream trip from her No. 10 post, settling into mid-pack in the field of 11 fillies and mares. Untapable kicked into gear on the far turn, swooping up on Iotapa, who had taken the lead after three-quarters of a mile.

"Down the backside, I could not have had more confidence," Napravnik said. "… We were wide around the second turn. But I was just sitting on go, and she was waiting on my call."

The Santa Anita-based Iotapa hung in gamely until the final sixteenth mile, when Untapable edged away to cover 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.68. Untapable paid $5.20 to win.

Don't Tell Sophia, ridden by Churchill-based Joe Rocco Jr. for trainer and co-owner Phil Sims, rallied from last on the far turn to take second by a nose over Iotapa.

"It looked like there was a lot of speed, especially the way the race track is here," Rocco said. "You can count on them going fast, figured they would, and obviously they did. All this worked out according to plan, except we just didn't get by that last one. She's like a big train when she gets moving. When she's in full flight coming off the turn, she's just tremendous power."

It was another 4-1/2 lengths to Spinster runner-up Ria Antonia, winner of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies upon the disqualification of She's a Tiger. Unbridled Forever, who finished third in the Oaks to Untapable, missed fourth by a head as Kentucky-based horses accounted for four of the top five.

Close Hatches, the 3-1 second choice, almost certainly will be retired after finishing last. That followed her fourth-place finish in the Spinster at 1-5 odds.

Untapable is 6 for 7 this year, her only defeat coming against males in Monmouth Park's $1 million Haskell. She's 8-0-1 in 11 victories, earning $2,996,725 with the $1.1 million payday.

"It's hard to put into words," said Winchell, whose family campaigned Tapit. "The results are what you dream about all year long."

Winchell said he plans to keep Untapable in training next year.

She'll just need a different rider.

Said Napravnik: "Couldn't think of a better way to go out."

Rees writes for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal