Two Oaklawn winners eye Preakness Stakes

Quip
Quip

On the day that he saddled his 8,000th career winner, Steve Asmussen watched his 19th consecutive Kentucky Derby loser as Combatant finished 18th on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

The Hall of Fame trainer must wait another year for his first victory in the Run for the Roses but can improve on a good Preakness record May 19 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

photo

Tenfold

Asmussen is pointing Tenfold, a two-time winner at Oaklawn Park and fifth in the Grade 1 $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 14, to the middle jewel of the Triple Crown. He is a son of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, Asmussen's first of two Preakness winners (2007). The Texan also won the race in 2009 with the filly Rachel Alexandra, who won the Kentucky Oaks for trainer Hal Wiggins before moving to Asmussen's barn after a sale prior to the Preakness.

Asmussen said he was a "touch disappointed" in Tenfold's Arkansas Derby, which marked the colt's third career start. The trainer was optimistic after the colt worked five furlongs in 1:00 1-5 Monday at Churchill Downs, two days after Justify took Derby 144 by 2 1/2 lengths over a sloppy track.

"He's a very nice horse that is getting better," Asmussen said Monday on Bloodhorse.com. "I liked his work a lot today. We're expecting big things from him."

About Tenfold's Arkansas Derby, "He's better than that," the trainer said.

Arkansas Derby runner-up Quip also is preparing for the Preakness, trainer Rodolphe Brissett skipping the Kentucky Derby after what he called a hard 3-year-old campaign for the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby winner.

Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas is pointing Oaklawn winner Bravazo (sixth in the Kentucky Derby) and locally raced Sporting Chance to the Preakness, according to a Bloodhorse report. Bravazo has lost twice since his Grade 2 Risen Star victory in February at Churchill Downs. Sporting Chance, last year's Grade 1 Hopeful winner at Saratoga but winless in two Oaklawn races, placed fourth in Saturday's Grade 3 Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs.

Other Preakness contenders include Derby runner-up Good Magic and eighth-place finisher Lone Sailor. Good Magic, whose two victories have come in graded stakes (Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Blue Grass), is the reigning male juvenile champion for trainer Chad Brown.

Also sired by Curlin and produced by the Oaklawn stakes-winning mare Glinda the Good, Good Magic challenged Justify at the head of the stretch in the Derby but could not get by the Scat Daddy colt.

Justify, giving trainer Bob Baffert his fifth Derby victory and jockey Mike Smith his second, became the first Derby winner not to race as a 2-year-old since Apollo in 1882. The colt is 4 for 4 since a Feb. 18 debut at Santa Anita in California.

Baffert said Monday he was not worried about a sensitive area in the Derby winner's left hind foot, calling it "like a diaper rash" and saying that justify "looked great today."

"He's had it before," Baffert said on Bloodhorse.com. "You get it from wet (tracks) and you have to soften it up. It can be irritating."

Sports on 05/08/2018

Upcoming Events