2025.01.05 Oaklawn Racing Update
Compiled by Robert Yates —-
Riding the momentum of a career year in 2024, trainer Greg Compton opened 2025 by checking off a bucket-list item Saturday at Oaklawn when G W’s Girl captured the $150,000 Mockingbird Stakes.
The Mockingbird, a six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies, marked the first career Oaklawn stakes victory for Compton, who grew up about 60 miles northeast of Hot Springs in North Little Rock, Ark.
A former assistant under three-time Oaklawn training champion Bobby Barnett, Compton started his first horse in 2006, saddled his first winner in 2007 and set overall career bests in 2024 for starts (167), victories (34), stakes victories (two) and purse earnings ($1,555,795).
“It’s going up,” Compton said with a laugh Sunday morning. “The “GC” stock’s going up, it looks like.”
The lightly raced G W’s Girl ($12.80) was making her stakes and dirt debut for Compton and owner Mag Racing of Gregg Massanelli and Margaret Molleston. Massanelli is an orthopedic surgeon in El Dorado, Ark. Molleston is an executive with GeoSouthern Energy Partners, a petroleum and natural gas production company headquartered in suburban Houston. Compton said Molleston is originally from Magnolia, Ark., about 35 miles west of El Dorado.
“They’re a relatively new partnership,” said Compton, who trains seven horses for Mag. “They’re friends and known each other forever.”
Compton, as an agent for Mag, purchased G W’s Girl for $130,000 at the OBS March Sale of Two-Year-Olds in training. Compton said he considered the chestnut daughter of Munnings a promising prospect from the start and possibly a candidate for a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile turf race in November at Del Mar, noting Molleston has a house near the Southern California venue.
“I said this is the one that maybe could get us there,” Compton said.
G W’s Girl won her career debut at about 5 furlongs Sept. 19 at Delaware Park, where Compton is based after the Oaklawn meeting ends. The Breeders’ Cup dreams were dashed in her next start when G W’s Girl finished fifth, beaten two lengths, in the $250,000 Indian Summer Stakes at 5 ½ furlongs Oct. 6 at Keeneland.
“She just had a disastrous trip in the Indian Summer,” Compton said. “Just was bottled up and had nowhere to go all the way around the turn.”
Since Compton annually winters at Oaklawn, it was dirt or bust for G W’s Girl.
Compton said he entered G W’s Girl in a one-mile allowance race in early December, but it didn’t fill. She was then pointed to the Mockingbird, which was headed by 2-5 favorite Shisospicy.
Shisospicy opened a 3 ½-length lead over G W’s Girl in midstretch, but the latter closed strongly on the outside under Francisco Arrieta to get up by a length. The final time for six furlongs over a fast track was 1:10.44. G W’s Girl was assigned a preliminary Beyer Speed Figure of 87.
“It was essentially a never-win-two allowance yesterday,” Compton said. “She’s a nice filly. She’s a horse that’s not going to beat herself. She has a very good mind. She handled that (indoor) paddock with total class. Never turned a hair. Just an easy horse in the barn.”
Compton said G W’s Girl could try two turns for the first time in her next start. Oaklawn’s Kentucky Oaks series begins with the $300,000 Martha Washington Stakes Jan. 25 and the $400,000 Honeybee Stakes (G3) Feb. 22. Both races are 1 1/16 miles.
“We’ll see,” Compton said. “Massanelli’s kind of like: ‘You know, if we’re going to try it, let’s go ahead and find out quick if she can get two turns or not.’ ”
G W’s Girl, 2 for 3 overall, has earnings of $110,475.
The Mockingbird was the 65th career Oaklawn victory for Compton. He won 14 races last season at Oaklawn, a personal best in Hot Springs, to finish 11th in the standings.