At year's end, Oaklawn Park's 2017 stakes schedule still calls attention to itself.
In February, Gun Runner launched a probable championship season with a powerful victory in Oaklawn's Grade 3 Razorback Handicap. The Candy Ride 4-year-old, trained by Steve Asmussen, notched four Grade 1 victories, avenging his March Dubai World Cup defeat against defending champion Arrogate in November's Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar. An 11-time winner of more than $8.9 million, Gun Runner makes the final start of his career in January's $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Florida's Gulfstream Park.
No champion may emerge from the March 11 Honeybee Stakes but the $200,000 Grade 3 event for 3-year-old fillies proved Oaklawn's key race of 2017 by leaps and bounds.
Nine of the 11 Honeybee starters returned to win, seven in stakes races. Elate, third in the Oaklawn race as betting favorite, won a pair of Grade 1 events in New York for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott -- the Alabama at Saratoga and the Beldame at Belmont Park. Honeybee winner It Tiz Well, trained by Hall of Famer Jerry Hollendorfer, captured the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx Racing in her last start and also won the Grade 3 Delaware Oaks.
Fourth-place Honeybee finisher Tapa Tapa Tapa became the ninth Honeybee starter to return and win with a 12 1/4-length comeback victory Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs. Trainer Tim Hamm's filly had not run since placing sixth in Pimlico's Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan May 19.
Honeybee runner-up Benner Island came back to win the Grade 2 Eight Belles on Churchill Downs' Kentucky Oaks undercard May 5. Brad Cox trains both the Speightstown filly and winning 2-year-old half-brother High North (by Midnight Lute) for Hot Springs lumberman John Ed Anthony's Shortleaf Stable.
The Honeybee also produced the Asmussen-trained Ever So Clever (fifth), April 14 winner of Oaklawn's Grade 3 $400,000 Fantasy. In addition, two-time Oaklawn stakes winner Chanel's Legacy (sixth) won the Panthers at Prairie Meadows, Someday Soon (eighth) the Tomboy at Ohio's Belterra Park and Lovely Bernadette (11th) the Indiana Grand and Churchill Downs' Grade 2 Mrs. Revere (the latter on turf). My Sweet Stella (seventh) won an allowance/optional claimer at Churchill.
The only Honeybee starters not to return and win are Tap of War (ninth) and Perfect Wife (10th).
Someday Soon is being pointed to the $125,000 Pippin Jan. 13, trainer Will VanMeter said, and Tap of Water could be seen early in the 2018 meeting, said trainer Kelly Von Hemel. The Pippin is the first of three local preps for the Grade 1 $700,000 Apple Blossom Handicap April 13.
Three-time Grade 1 winner Abel Tasman, trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, is the presumptive favorite as 3-year-old filly champion at next month's Eclipse Awards banquet. After starting the season with trainer Simon Callaghan, Quality Road's daughter scored Grade 1 victories in the Kentucky Oaks, Acorn (Belmont) and Coaching Club American Oaks (Saratoga).
* Oaklawn's backstretch housed 1,072 horses Tuesday morning, 17 days before live racing begins at the track. ... Agent Gene Short, of Hot Springs, said he will keep the book of Alex Canchari, Oaklawn's co-third leading rider in 2017, and newcomer Mike Luzzi. Long based in New York, Luzzi won an Eclipse Award as the country's outstanding apprentice in 1989 and has 3,482 career victories, according to Equibase, racing's official data-gathering organization. Luzzi's lone victory in four Oaklawn starts came in the 2006 Apple Blossom aboard Spun Sugar for trainer Todd Pletcher.
Sports on 12/27/2017