HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Although she was winless in her first four starts, trainer Graham Motion’s confidence in Affirmative Lady never wavered. His patience paid off in a big way after the steadily improving 3-year-old filly rallied to a two-length victory over Sacred Wish in Saturday’s $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks. The victory assures Affirmative Lady a spot in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Down on May 5. Motion thought enough of Affirmative Lady to run her in the Grade 2 Demoiselle as a maiden in her 2-year-old finale, the lightly raced filly rallying to finish second, beaten just a neck, in a 1 1/8-mile race over a sloppy track. After returning to finish third six weeks later in the Busanda, Motion put Affirmative Lady back with maidens while equipping her with blinkers for the first time in her next start. The daughter of Arrogate proved a popular and relatively easy winner while earning herself a berth in the Gulfstream Park Oaks in the process. With Luis Saez aboard for the first time, and wearing blinkers again, Affirmative Lady raced less than four lengths off the early pace set by longshot Flakes while saving ground in the run down the backstretch of the 1 1/16-mile Oaks. Saez put Affrimative Lady under a hard drive to move within a length of the lead approaching the stretch, but appeared to hang a bit at that point. She then angled out toward the middle of the track and quickly found another gear, rallying strongly down the center of the course to readily overtake the leaders and win going away.  :: Get ready for Gulfstream Park racing with DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports.  Sacred Wish, like Affirmative Lady, also came into the Oaks off her maiden win. She raced at the rear of the compact lineup for more than six furlongs, angled widest leaving the final bend, and finished willingly once changing leads leaving the furlong grounds to wear down the tiring Flakes by a head to be second-best.  Dorth Vader was hung wide around the opening turn, stalked the leaders from outside for six furlongs, held a short advantage outside Flakes a furlong from the wire, before gradually weakening to finish fourth. She was followed in turn by the tepid 2-1 favorite Miracle, Infinite Diamond, Atomically and Just Katherine. Owned by AMO Racing USA, Affirmative Lady paid $19.00. Final time over a fast track was 1:44.69. She was assigned a Beyer Speed Figure of 81. “Mostly it was about the distance with her and the only chances to run a mile and one eighth with a filly like this was in stakes,” Motion said. “I think she bounced a little the second time (Busanda) after running so big against Todd’s filly (Julia Shining) in the Demoiselle. But I thought she was that kind of filly and she proved me right.” Motion said he feels blinkers have definitely been a part of Affirmative Lady’s recent improvement. “Johnny (Velazquez) had mentioned it to me when he rode her before and it was something I thought of, so we just decided to bite the bullet and put them on last time and it’s obviously made a difference,” Motion said. “I thought she might have been struggling a little down on the inside but Luis (Saez) said he had plenty of horse. He gave her a great ride, although I’m afraid I’m going to lose him to Todd’s filly in the Oaks.”  :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.