Always a Runner wins the 152nd Kentucky Oaks under the lights at Churchill Downs
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Always a Runner wins 152nd edition of the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
- Always a Runner is trained by Chad Brown and ridden by Jose Ortiz.
- Meaning finished in second and Counting Stars ran third in the Oaks.
Always a Runner won a historic 152nd running of the Grade 1, $1.5 million Longines Kentucky Oaks on Friday night under the lights and beneath the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
Trained by Chad Brown and ridden by Jose Ortiz, Always a Runner captured the signature race for 3-year-old fillies over a field of 13 runners. Always a Runner finished first in the 1 1/8-mile race over a fast main track at Churchill by 11/4 lengths over Meaning in second and 21/4 lengths over Counting Stars in third.
A $2 exacta bet on Always a Runner and Meaning paid $97.58. A $1 trifecta bet on those horses and Counting Stars in third paid $387.74. A $1 superfecta bet that also included fourth-place Explora paid $1,845.74.
Always a Runner — who went off at 5-1 odds — won the race in 1:48.82. The race’s fractions were 23.08 for the opening 1/4 mile, 46.85 for the opening 1/2 mile and 1:10.87 for the first 3/4 mile.
Meaning also went off at 5-1 odds. Counting Stars exited the starting gate at 6-1 odds and Explora was offered at 7-1 odds.
Douglas Scharbauer and Three Chimneys Farm own Always a Runner. Three Chimneys Farm bred the horse.
Always a Runner, whose racing career has been delayed multiple times due to illness, is Brown’s first winner in the Kentucky Oaks. Brown previously sent out a second-place finisher and two third-place runners in the Oaks.
“This filly is very resilient, very tough, as you saw today,” Brown told NBC after the race. “... She took us here today.”
This is Ortiz’s second Kentucky Oaks win. He previously won the Oaks in 2019 aboard Serengeti Empress.
“She’s amazing. Obviously, she ran very good races her first two times out, and Chad was very confident in her,” Ortiz told NBC. “He knew what he had. He told me ‘Just go out there, get to know her in the work, and you’re going to feel like (she is a) sports car. Like she’s a Ferrari.’ And, you know, he was right.”
Friday was Ortiz’s first race aboard Always a Runner.
The complete order of finish for the Oaks also featured Prom Queen in fifth, Zany in sixth, Percy’s Bar in seventh, Dazzling Dame in eighth, Resist in ninth, Search Party in 10th, Pashmina in 11th, Lovely Grey in 12th and Brooklyn Blonde in 13th.
Always a Runner won the Kentucky Oaks in just her third career start. Previously, she won a maiden special weight race in February at Tampa Bay Downs and the Grade 3 Gazelle Stakes in April at Aqueduct in New York.
Her sire is 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner and her dam is Always Carina, who was by Malibu Moon.
Friday’s edition of the Oaks was the first to be run at night at Churchill Downs. Post time for the event was 8:40 p.m., and Churchill Downs reported an attendance of 103,290 fans for Oaks Day.
The Oaks field underwent plenty of changes in recent days following this past weekend’s post-position draw.
All three also-eligible horses for the Oaks — Lovely Grey, Nycon and Resist — drew into the field after Bottle of Rouge, My Miss Mo and Bella Ballerina scratched out of the race.
After moving into the Oaks field, Nycon also scratched from the race. This left the Oaks with only 13 competing fillies, which is one fewer than the field maximum of 14.
Brown, the winning trainer of Always a Runner, also has a horse in Saturday night’s Grade 1, $5 million Kentucky Derby. That’s Emerging Market, who is aiming to become the first horse since 1883 to win the Derby after only making two previous starts.
The most recent trainer to win both the Derby and the Oaks in the same year was Kenny McPeek in 2024 with Thorpedo Anna and Mystik Dan.
Ortiz will ride Golden Tempo in Saturday’s Derby. Golden Tempo will begin the Kentucky Derby in post No. 17. That’s the only post that’s failed to produce a past Derby winner.
The 152nd Kentucky Derby is Saturday and has a post time of 6:57 p.m at Churchill Downs.
This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 9:04 PM.
