This past Saturday trainer Flint Stites sent out DeSales 85 LLC’s Circle P to an upset victory in the $75,000 Not for Love Stakes at Laurel Park.

This coming Saturday the same connections will team up once again, but this time, they’ll be hunting bigger game.

Stites will saddle DeSales 85’s Icona Mama in the $250,000 Virginia Oaks, and in addition to the financial prize, the race awards 50 Kentucky Oaks points to the winner.

Icona Mama, a winner twice in six starts, was a troubled third in the $100,000 Wide Country at Laurel Feb. 22. Since, she breezed a sharp five furlongs in 59 4/5 seconds at Stites’s Penn National base. That was the fastest of six works on the day.

“She’s doing really well,” Stites said Tuesday. “She came out of her last race good, and she had a really good work. She really didn’t run very hard at all [in her last race]; she wasn’t tired at all. I was happy that we were able to get a good work into her before this race.”

The Wide Country was Icona Mama’s first start since a 9 ½-length romp in the Pennsylvania-bred Shamrock Rose Stakes on her home track Nov. 27. Stites said the plans had been for an earlier start to the season, but circumstances intervened.

“We had planned on trying to get another race before, but the weather was terrible,” he said. “Trying to train horses this year has been really tough.”

Icona Mama is 8-1 on the morning line in the Virginia Oaks and will leave from the one-hole. Hall of Famer John Velazquez was initially named to ride, but he now will not be heading to New Kent, so Stites will go to Plan B: a rider to be named.

Gowells Delight, trained by Kenny McPeek for Fern Circle Stables, is the very lukewarm 3-1 morning line favorite in an eight-horse field. She most recently was second in the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra Stakes Feb. 15 at the Fair Grounds, a race won by the 5-for-5 Brad Cox trainee Good Cheer.

The second choice is Fondly (7-2), for Graham Motion and owners Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. She was an easy winner at first asking in a maiden event at Tampa Bay Downs.

With six starts under her belt, Icona Mama is more experienced than all but one of her rivals, Girl Math (5-1) for trainer Rodolphe Brisset and owner WinStar Farm LLC.

The Virginia Oaks, like the Virginia Derby, is a bit of an odd bird: a 1 1/16-mile race around one turn on the spacious New Kent oval. Icona Mama has gone a mile twice, both around one turn, and one of those – a third-place finish by less than a length in the Grade 3 Pocahontas at Churchill Downs – is probably the best outing of her career.

“She did really well in the [Pocahontas],” Stites said. “I think one turn is going to fit her pretty well. So we’re just going to have to get her to relax a little bit; that’s probably the biggest obstacle.”

From the beginning, Stites has handled the daughter of Maximus Mischief like a good horse. She’s run in five consecutive stakes since winning at first asking and run all good races except one – a distant fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Frizette at Aqueduct.

“I really couldn’t come up with anything in the Frizette except possibly the surface,” he said. “Aqueduct is kind of cuppy sometimes. It was really dry that day. She got caught inside most of the race, and finally she just quit. She’d had enough.”

Icona Mama is out of the Bernstein mare Classe Signora, a 14-time winner who did her best work on grass and synthetic. She was bred in Pennsylvania by Patrick Morrell and Tanya Lobsiger, and DeSales 85 picked her up for $75,000 at last April’s OBS 2-year-old sale. Icona Mama hasn’t tried the grass yet but did win her only start on synthetic, breaking her maiden at Presque Isle Downs.

That gives Stites, known for his low-key demeanor, and the owners options to consider. But those are for down the road. In front of them right now is a big prize on dirt. The 50 Oaks points likely would be sufficient for a trip to Louisville.

“If she would win, the Kentucky Oaks would be a possibility we would think about,” Stites said.