Green will be the color of choice Saturday at Oaklawn Park, and for reasons other than it being St. Patrick's Day.
Three stakes races with total value of $1.55 million highlight a 10-race card with combined purses of $2,030,000, a March record at the track. Although the Grade 2 $900,000 Rebel, Grade 2 $350,000 Azeri and ungraded $300,000 Essex Handicap are not affected, the seven other races benefit from the second purse increase of the season.
The first race, at 1:05 p.m., for instance, is an $84,000 allowance for older fillies and mares at a mile and sixteenth, four of the six nominated to but not entered in the Azeri at the same distance. Hours before both send out Arkansas Derby hopefuls in the mile-and-sixteenth Rebel, Hall of Fame trainers Steve Asmussen and Wayne Lukas are represented in a $81,000 race for maiden 3-year-olds at the same distance (nine furlongs) as Oaklawn's oldest and richest ($1 million) event. Undercard races valued at $81,000, $82,000 and $83,000 precede the second Essex-Azeri-Rebel combination in track history, Streamline defending her title in the Azeri.
It's the 18th consecutive year Oaklawn has increased purses at least once during a meeting, this hike taking effect on one of the track's biggest business days. The track's gaming center operates from 10 a.m., an hour before grandstand admittance, to 6 a.m. today and Saturday.
Three days after the Irish holiday, Oaklawn drew an estimated 36,000 patrons with an all-sources handle of more than $10.7 million on Rebel Saturday last year. This year, it coincides with the 15th anniversary of the First Ever World's Shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade downtown, the Bridge Street spectacle pushed back to 7:30 p.m. to avoid a scheduling conflict with Oaklawn racing.
"Think of it," a Little Rock TV reporter said Thursday at the track, "as a Razorback football game in town going on at the same time as Riverfest."
Saturday's entries were drawn Wednesday and program odds set Thursday with 11 older males in the Essex (4:55 p.m.), eight older females in the Azeri (5:32 p.m.) and 11 3-year-old males in the Rebel (6:09 p.m.).
Making his seasonal debut, Solomini is the early 3-2 choice to give Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert his seventh Rebel victory in nine years. Sired by 2007 Rebel and Arkansas Derby winner Curlin, the colt has raced exclusively in stakes since winning his career debut going 6 1/2 furlongs at Del Mar.
After developing an elevated temperature in January, what Baffert called a "minor setback," Solomini has not raced since Dec. 17, when he crossed the finish line first but was disqualified and placed third in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity in California. Before that, Solomini was second to Good Magic (Breeders' Cup Juvenile) and Bolt d'Oro (FrontRunner) in Grade 1 races on the West Coast.
Flavien Prat gives up a day's mounts at Santa Anita to ride Solomini for Baffert at Oaklawn. The colt breaks from post three with 115 pounds. Solomini co-owner Ahmed Zayat won the 2015 Rebel and Arkansas Derby with American Pharoah, subsequently the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.
Todd Pletcher, winning trainer of last year's Rebel with lightly raced Malagacy, is back with Magnum Moon, 2 for 2 in Florida for longtime Oaklawn patrons Robert and Lawana Low of Springfield, Mo. It's the stakes debut and longest race to date for the son of Malibu Moon, unraced as a 2-year-old.
Magnum Moon breaks from post four with Luis Saez, who has a Grade 1 victory (Hopeful Stakes) aboard Rebel opponent Sporting Chance. Despite their gap in experience, Magnum Moon is the projected 7-2 second choice and Sporting Chance the likely 5-1 third pick in the betting. The Lukas-trained Sporting Chance switches to Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez after the Tiznow colt finished a troubled third in Oaklawn's Grade 3 $500,000 Southwest Feb. 19, his first start since Labor Day.
Asmussen is represented by three horses, Title Ready (Jose Ortiz) breaking from post one, Zing Zang (Corey Lanerie) from post nine and Combatant (Ricardo Santana Jr.) from post 10. Combatant, co-owned by Arkansas horseman Willis Horton, has finished second in his last three starts, all stakes, most recently in the Southwest.
Shippers include High North, owned by Hot Springs lumberman John Ed Anthony, with Hall of Famer Gary Stevens riding for Brad Cox, and Curlin's Honor, whose trainer, Mark Casse, won last year's Arkansas Derby with champion Classic Empire. Curlin's Honor (Florent Geroux aboard) breaks from post two and High North from post eight.
Completing the field in the 58th Rebel are Oaklawn winners Higher Power and Pryor and the locally raced Bode's Maker. Pryor and Bode's Maker are cross-entered in an $82,000 entry-level allowance at 1 1/16 miles Sunday.
Southwest winner My Boy Jack, trained by Keith Desormeaux, is pointing to the March 24 Grade 2 Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds, the first of the 170-point Kentucky Derby preps. The Rebel offers 87 points to the top four finishers (50 to the winner) for a possible start in the May 5 classic at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
Sports on 03/16/2018