Not every racing day has been conducted under sun-splashed skies nor has every race been over a fast track, mild disappointments to management and horsemen.
But for a meeting that began on a Friday the 13th in January, Oaklawn Park has been open for live racing every day without a proverbial straw in its path.
The sixth Friday of the season marked the 22nd of Oaklawn's 57 scheduled racing cards. With slightly more than one-third of the meeting over, Oaklawn is midway on the backstretch to use a racing analogy with the first significant benchmark of the season ahead.
After repairing whatever glitches arise in the opening weeks, management takes a closer look at the attendance and handle figures after Presidents Day. This holiday weekend looms especially large with the richest February program in track history Monday, the 10-race card including two $500,000 races.
The Southwest, with 13 3-year-olds entered, should give a clear picture about Oaklawn's Kentucky Derby prospects. The top two finishers from last month's $150,000 Smarty Jones, Uncontested and Petrov, are back with strong Oaklawn connections, the former co-owned by Little Rock horseman Harry Rosenblum and the latter trained by rising star Ron Moquett.
The Southwest, Oaklawn's second of four major two-turn races for 3-year-olds, is followed by the $900,000 Rebel March 18 and the $1 million Arkansas Derby April 15.
Moving up the Razorback Handicap by one month and scheduling it on Presidents Day punched up a race long overshadowed by the Rebel and now carrying equal value ($500,000) as the Southwest. The first Monday running of the Razorback marks the local debut of Gun Runner, last year's Kentucky Derby third-place finisher for Hall of Fame trainer and seven-time Oaklawn champion Steve Asmussen.
After each race Monday, the winning jockey will draw a name from a squirrel cage making that patron eligible for a cash prize -- $1,000 after the first race, $2,000 after the second, and so on, with $10,000 after the 10th. Oaklawn's $55,000 progressive cash giveaway is an incentive to arrive early at the track on Monday for a 10-race card starting at 1:05 p.m. and with the Razorback listed seventh and the Southwest ninth.
So far, Oaklawn has no major squawks with Mother Nature, no mean feat for a January-to-April season that usually contains extremes of Arkansas weather. The only day that might have been threatened by winter weather, Jan. 6, when Hot Springs received enough snow to close schools, came one week before opening Friday
Competing for the highest purses in track history, horses have responded with some extraordinary performances. Whitmore, an Oaklawn star last season, set a local record for six furlongs in January (1:08.81) in his 4-year-old debut. One day later, Uncontested set a stakes record in the Smarty Jones with a mile in 1:36.32.
Oaklawn's accelerated stakes program for Arkansas-bred horses begins next week with a pair of $100,000 races, one each for older males and females and named after two distinguished state-bred horses of yesteryear (Downthedustyroad and Nodouble).
The Sentinel-Record's tribute to the women at Oaklawn in the monthly "Her" magazine was barely in print before female trainers started winning major races at the track. Lynn Chleborad has won two stakes with the 3-year-old filly Chanel's Legacy (produced by the mare Chanel's Number Mine) and Helen Pitts, the first trainer of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, has won twice (most recently in a stakes) with the older female sprinter Athena.
What's more, female apprentice jockey Katie Clawson rode two winners Friday.
Speaking of jockeys, Jon Court, a two-time winner of the Arkansas Derby and past Oaklawn champion, is riding alongside his 30-year-old son, Aaron, both winning at the meet. Despite missing the first five days of the season, Ricardo Santana Jr. rode two winners Friday and took the lead in the jockey standings (24-23 over Ramon Vazquez, both with the same agent).
A spirited race in the trainer standings is developing between Robertino Diodoro and Federico Villafranco, both active at the claiming box, with Moquett giving chase and Asmussen, as always, in the mix.
Two of Oaklawn's Sunshine Boys, Hall of Famer trainers Jack Van Berg and Wayne Lukas, both in their 80s, are enjoying successful seasons, Lukas entering two horses in the Southwest and saddling several winners for the famed Calumet Farm of Lexington, Ky.
Also in the trainer standings is K.K. Jayaraman, a retired former Hot Springs cardiologist who for a second time is conditioning his own horses. He and wife Devi bred and raced 2009 3-year-old champion Summer Bird, third in that year's Arkansas Derby and future winner of the Belmont Stakes.
Much is happening at Oaklawn, as one can see, with more to come before the season reaches the far turn in March, so to speak, and then makes the April stretch run.
Local on 02/19/2017