In the thoroughbred's first five starts, Hunter Henry had the name of a winner but not the talent.
Graduation day for the 4-year-old gelding came Thursday at Oaklawn Park. With a three-wide move on the turn and an effort that Equibase Co. trackman Jeff Taylor called "all out," Hunter Henry escaped the maiden ranks in a $21,000 race for fellow Arkansas-bred non-winners.
The winner's time was glacial -- a fast-rated six furlongs in 1:15.01 is slow even for Arkansas-bred horses -- but the 3-5 favorite was prompt at the wire, widening his lead in the stretch to 2 1/4 lengths. Hunter Henry had the services of Oaklawn's leading jockey, three-time local champion Ricardo Santana Jr., and represented the meet-high 10th winner for Arkansas-born trainer Ron Moquett.
The four-legged Hunter Henry has been a conversation piece since his racing debut on Thanksgiving Friday 2014 at Churchill Downs. As luck would have it, the animal's namesake, the star University of Arkansas tight end (then a sophomore) from Little Rock's Pulaski Academy, was playing that afternoon in the bowl-bound 2014 Razorbacks' regular-season finale. Neither Hunter Henry celebrated victory that day, the horse in Louisville, Ky., or the football player in Columbia, Mo.
Hunter Henry's success on the racetrack came after his namesake enjoyed a tremendous junior year at Arkansas, earning All-America honors and receiving the Mackey Award as college football's premier tight end. After helping the Razorbacks beat Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl last month, the pass-catching and blocking Hunter Henry announced that he would pass on his senior season at Arkansas and enter the NFL draft.
Immediate plans for Oaklawn's Hunter Henry are less definite, other than to say that they card races for non-winners of two races at tracks everywhere. Hunter Henry won in his sixth start after two third-place finishes. There were no takers for Hunter Henry or any of his 10 opponents, entered for a claiming price of $12,500 down to $10,000, so Thursday's first-race winner returned to the barn of Moquett, who bred the Silver Train gelding and races him under the banner of Southern Springs Stables.
The real-life Hunter Henry, by the way, is a friend and former college classmate of Moquett's son, Chance, a 2015 University of Arkansas graduate. And, Oaklawn's Hunter Henry officially turns 4 by the calendar March 28.
Servis call: Nasa's eighth-race victory Thursday at Oaklawn tugged at the hearts of anyone who ever cheered for the winner's sire.
Like Smarty Jones, the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner whose only loss in nine starts came when second to Birdstone in the Belmont Stakes with the Triple Crown riding on the outcome, Nasa is a Pennsylvania-bred colt owned by the Someday Farm of breeder Patricia Chapman.
Produced by a Seattle Slew mare, Nasa led from gate to wire -- not exactly like his sire, who tended to press the pace before drawing off -- for a 2 1/4-length triumph over Oaklawn veteran Bold Conquest going a fast-rated mile and a sixteenth in 1:45.79. It was two lengths farther back to odds-on favorite Raagheb, third in a field of 11 older horses not ready for or a cut below those in Saturday's $100,000 Essex Handicap. With Joshua Navarro up, Nasa paid $15.20 to win.
A May foal, Nasa was sired by one of the most beloved horses in Oaklawn history, winner of the Southwest, Rebel and Arkansas Derby in the track's centennial racing season. Like Smarty Jones, Nasa is trained by John Servis, who chose Oaklawn's series of Triple Crown preps after Smarty Jones started his career in Pennsylvania (at what is now Parx Racing) and won an early-season 2014 stake at Aqueduct in New York. Nasa's three previous victories came on the East Coast, his maiden score coming second time out at Maryland's Laurel Park. He was second in last year's Grade 3 Jerome at Aqueduct.
Patricia Chapman and her late husband, Roy, received a $5 million bonus from Oaklawn president Charles J. Cella at Pennsylvania Park in May 2004 for a three-race sweep by Smarty Jones including the Kentucky Derby. Counting the bonus, Smarty Jones earned $7,613,155 from nine starts. The colt was retired after the Belmont Stakes and was named champion 3-year-old male of 2004 but not Horse of the Year (that honor going to Breeders' Cup Classic winner Ghostzapper). He has a Kentucky Derby prep race at Oaklawn named in his honor along with a Labor Day race at Parx Racing.
After starting his postrace career at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., Smarty Jones currently stands for $7,500 at historic Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky. He turns 15 by the calendar on Feb. 28. His name alone brings a tingle to anyone who ever watched him run.
Sports on 02/12/2016