Boyd Racing and By Talla Racing's Splendora earned her fifth 2026 graded stakes victory in six starts, dominating in the $400,000 Locust Grove Stakes by five and quarter lengths on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Churchill Downs.

Under reigning Eclipse Award-winning jockey Flavien Prat for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, the 5-year-old mare stumbled slightly out of the gate but quickly recovered to lead before the first turn. The 1-5 favorite stayed in charge through fractions of :24.28, :47.86 and 1:11.84 with second-choice Immersive pressing. Splendora then strengthened her grip on the lead rounding the far turn, clocking a mile in 1:36.61. She quickly drew away to complete the mile and a sixteenth in 1:43.30 over a fast main track while earning her second 100 Beyer Figure in a row.

The 2025 Maryland-bred champion older female and champion sprinter came in having won seven of her past eight starts. Ending 2025 with a win in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint-G1 at Del Mar, she kicked off this season with scores in the seven-furlong D. Wayne Lukas Stakes-G2 in February and the B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile Stakes-G1 a month later, both at Santa Anita, before making her first trip outside of California. Sent to Kentucky, she faded to fourth in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs at seven furlongs on Derby Day before rebounding to win the Shawnee Stakes-G2 on May 30. Shipped to Monmouth Park on Haskell Day, she won the Grade 2 Molly Pitcher Stakes by more than five lengths. Her last three wins have been at a mile and a sixteenth.

Splendora now has 10 wins (and four seconds) in 16 starts, with $1,843,700 in total career earnings. That moves her to 11th on the list of all-time Maryland-bred money earners, past Include -- and less than $1,000 behind 10th-ranked Mindframe.

Bred by Stuart Grant's The Elkstone Group, Splendora was bought by Michael Talla's Talla Racing as a yearling for $125,000 at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Sale out of the Brookdale Sales consignment. She is one of three winners from as many named foals for her dam, the Frost Giant mare Miss Freeze, who was purchased for $45,000 at the 2020 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale with Splendora in utero. She was sent back through the Keeneland November sale in 2023, returning a $37,000 RNA.

Miss Freeze's first foal, the 6-year-old mare Firsttimeinforever (by Always Dreaming), is a four-time winner and earner of $211,345. Miss Freeze also produced a colt by Demarchelier (GB) in 2023 named Oracle of Beaufort, also owned by The Elkstone Group. After being unable to produce a foal in 2024, she has a Maryland-bred yearling filly by Tiz the Law. She delivered a National Treasure colt on March 20 in Kentucky for The Elkstone Group LLC and was bred back to Sierra Leone.