Whatever his relations with Churchill Downs, Bob Baffert treats Oaklawn as a home away from his native California.
The man with six Kentucky Derby winners -- it was seven until now-deceased Medina Spirit flunked a drug test in 2021 -- added one for the thumb, as pro athletes might say of championship rings, regarding the Arkansas Derby on Saturday.
Even if Muth turned it into a possible Preakness prep.
The Good Magic colt, his champion sire turning out 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage, checked every box available to him: first start outside California, second Grade 1 victory (by two lengths over Just Steel) and fifth by a Baffert winner in a Derby prep since last fall. Muth, the Grade 1 American Pharoah winner in October, won for the fourth time in six starts. He finished a distant second to future champion Fierceness in the Nov. 3 G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile, then wired the field in the G2 San Vicente Jan. 6 going seven furlongs at Santa Anita.
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Juan Hernandez, a 26-percent winning rider last year, scored his first Oaklawn stakes victory aboard the $2 million Ocala Breeders' Sales purchase in March 2023. Zedan Racing Stables' bay colt thus becomes a major player in the Preakness May 20, Baffert winning the middle jewel of the Triple Crown last year with National Treasure.
Fierceness, with 100 points for winning Saturday's Grade 1 Florida Derby, retakes the Derby points lead with 166. Also bettering their May 4 hopes were the next three Arkansas Derby finishers: runner-up Just Steel (eighth with 65), show horse Mystik Dan (15th with 46) and fourth-place horse Timberlake (fifth with 81).
Horses are led out before a race on Saturday at Oaklawn ahead of the four stakes' races, including the $1.5M Arkansas Derby. (The Sentinel-Record/Lance Brownfield)Muth went nine furlongs, a sixteenth-mile shorter than the Preakness, in 1:49.54 and paid $6.60, $5 and $3.80. Just Steel, with Keith Asmussen riding, completed the exacta in a third Oaklawn Derby qualifying race for Wayne Lukas. Mystik Dan, off since winning the G3 Southwest by eight lengths in the slop Feb. 3, could not make it a five-bagger for McPeek. Timberline, the G2 Rebel winner, Feb. 24, tried vainly to become a record third-straight Arkansas Derby winner for trainer Brad Cox.
Muth joins Bodemeister (2012), American Pharoah (2015), Charlatan and Nadal (the latter two in 2020 with split divisions) as Baffert-trained Arkansas Derby winners. The silver-haired trainer likens Oaklawn to Churchill Downs in several key aspects, one key difference being that the other track on Central Avenue (Louisville) keeps posting a stay-out sign.