ELMONT, N.Y. – While trainer Chad Brown will have to wait at least another year to try and win his first Kentucky Derby, the five-time Eclipse Award winning trainer will have a chance to win his first Kentucky Oaks with Ballerina d’Oro in two weeks.  Ballerina d’Oro’s nose victory as the 3-5 favorite over Early On in the Grade 3 Gazelle Stakes at Aqueduct on April 5 may not have attracted many onto her bandwagon, but Ballerina d’Oro did look solid Saturday morning working a half-mile in 47.88 seconds over Belmont Park’s training track in preparation for the May 2 Oaks.  Under Dylan Davis, who rode her in the Gazelle but is committed to La Cara in the Oaks, Ballerina d’Oro worked outside the 3-year-old colt Hill Road – third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Tampa Bay Derby. The team went in fractions of 12.96 seconds, 25.43 and got their last quarter in 23.45 seconds over a fast surface. Ballerina d’Oro, who stayed straight through the lane, continued to gallop-out five furlongs in 1:00.78 and six furlongs in 1:14.28.  :: Get DRF Kentucky Oaks & Derby Betting Strategies by Marcus Hersh and David Aragona. Full analysis and wager recommendations! In the Gazelle, Ballerina d’Oro lugged in on two occasions in the stretch, but was able to get up by nose. Brown said he did not make any changes to Ballerina d’Oro’s equipment following the Gazelle.  “I’m not going to react to that, it was such an isolated thing for me, she has enough steering equipment on her between her bit and a small blinker I’m not going to over-react here,” Brown said. “As you see today, she cruised around there with Hill Road. Dylan said I don’t know where that came from because she was straight for me today.”  Brown said that Ballerina d’Oro may have gotten a bit lost in the Gazelle when she came into the stretch and didn’t have any horses to her outside and there was space between her and horses to her inside.  “She’s going to have horses near her wherever she is in this race,” Brown said. “Look at her race in the Demoiselle [when second to Muhimma], she might have leaned in a half-path but she was going through traffic and came right next to that other horse turning for home and she was fine.”  Brown has started four horses in three runnings of the Kentucky Oaks. Lewis Bay finished third in 2016, Search Results was second in 2021 and Regulatory Risk and Ways and Means ran third and fourth, respectively, last year.  “This year we’re catching one of the deeper Oaks fields,” Brown said. “Even with the 2-year-old filly champion [Immersive] not in there I think it’s a really deep field. When they open the gates in the Oaks I’m going to say half the field can win. Although I have one of my better chances in a handful of tries or less in the Oaks, I’m also catching one of the tougher fields we’re participating in top to bottom.”  Brown, who has Flavien Prat to ride, said Ballerina d’Oro would ship to Kentucky on Sunday and will likely have her final breeze at Churchill Downs on Friday.  Hill Road to Peter Pan; Sierra Leone to Stephen Foster  Ballerina d’Oro’s workmate Hill Road, who was forced to miss a planned start in the Wood Memorial due to a fever, is now being pointed to the Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 with the hopes of making it to the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 7.  “I think that’s a better reset for him,” Brown said. “I like the way he galloped out [Saturday] after getting over his illness and hopefully he can just keep coming forward to that race.”  Brown said getting Hill Road back to the work tab this weekend was necessary if he was going to have a chance to make any of the Triple Crown races beyond the Kentucky Derby.  “That said, he came into this weekend wanting to work,” Brown said. “I didn’t have to push him into it or rush him.”  Meanwhile, Brown said that he plans to turnback Chancer McPatrick in distance and will try to make the Grade 1 Woody Stephens at Saratoga on June 7. Chancer McPatrick, winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga last summer, came out of the Blue Grass, in which he finished in a dead-heat for sixth with Owen Almighty, sick.  Lastly, Brown said he is pointing Sierra Leone, last year’s champion 3-year-old to the Grade 1, $1 million Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs on June 28.   Sierra Leone, third as the 1-5 favorite in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic at Fair Grounds in March, is scheduled to ship to Belmont this week, Brown said. On Saturday, Sierra Leone worked a half-mile in 49.60 seconds at Payson Park.  “He’s going to come to Belmont to train because I want to be around the horse,” Brown said. “He’s probably headed to the Stephen Foster and I don’t want to train him from afar and I’m not setting up shop in Kentucky all summer.”  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.