Kenny McPeek (winning trainer of Defining Purpose)

On whether the win was as big an upset as her 20-1 odds on the tote board reflected 

“I’m not overly surprised. She had a couple of reasons why: She fell off a little bit of form in her last two (third in the listed Martha Washington Stakes and sixth in the Grace 3 Honeybee, both at Oaklawn). She hooked a couple of muddy race tracks. The last trip (in the Honeybee) she had was really wide and wider.”

Brian Hernandez Jr. (winning rider)

“(Her early position) was great. When she went around the first turn and got her position so nice and smoothly and settled into a nice rhythm, going down the backside I was just thinking to myself, ‘Be patient, just wait and wait and let her travel well.’ And that’s what she did. When she turned for home she kicked on, and with the short stretch to the sixteenth pole, I was pretty confident in her.”

Flavien Prat (rider of runner-up Punchbowl)

“Unfortunately she had to wait to get out (of traffic.) I couldn’t go by the winner. She made a good run.”

Luis Saez (rider of third-place finisher Julia Shining)

“She's still learning. We came to the half-mile pole and I thought we were going to win the race, but the horse on the lead never stopped. (The blinkers) helped a lot. She was way better. She was in the bridle the whole way. I feel like she has so much talent, she just needs to put it together.”

Tyler Gaffalione (rider of champion and second choice Wonder Wheel, who finished sixth)

“She broke well and put herself in a good spot. It just wasn’t her day.”