Bob Baffert is outnumbered in the Southwest Stakes but not necessarily overmatched.
Trying to win the Kentucky Derby prep for a fifth time, the Hall of Fame trainer is represented by last-out Oaklawn Park stakes winner Mourinho in Monday's Grade 3 $500,000 race for 3-year-olds. Last seen winning the $150,000 Smarty Jones mile by 3 1/4 lengths Jan. 15, for which he earned a 99 Beyer Speed Figure, Mourinho returns from California after four works at Santa Anita.
Mourinho drew post four in the 11-horse Southwest, two cross-entered in today's Grade 2 $400,000 Risen Star at Fair Grounds. Both races are 1 1/16 miles, although the Risen Star (50-20-10-5) offers more points than the Southwest (10-4-2-1) to its top four finishers for a possible start in the 144th Kentucky Derby May 5 at Churchill Downs.
Lake Hamilton High School graduate Drayden Van Dyke keeps the mount for Baffert, the Southwest winner in 2010 with Conveyance, 2012 with Castaway and Secret Circle and 2013 with Super Ninety Nine. Mourinho's sire, Super Saver, placed second in the 2010 Arkansas Derby before giving future Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher his first of two Kentucky Derby winners.
The Southwest features the 3-year-old debut of Sporting Chance, winner of Saratoga's Grade 1 Hopeful on Labor Day before forced to the sidelines. Working often, sometimes brilliantly, over the track, the Tiznow colt hopes to give Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas his first Southwest winner since Big Sur upset future classic winners Pine Bluff and Lil E. Tee in 1992. New York-based jockey Luis Saez keeps the mount on Sporting Chance, a $575,000 yearling purchase by longtime Lukas clients Robert Baker and William Mack.
Two-time Southwest winner Steve Asmussen entered four in the Southwest, with Principe Guilherme also penciled in for the Risen Star. Combatant has placed second in back-to-back stakes races, most recently in the Southwest, while unbeaten Retirement Fund, seeking his third victory, and the late-running Zing Zang come from New Orleans. Hall of Famer and eight-time Oaklawn champion Steve Asmussen named Florent Geroux aboard Principe Guilherme, Shaun Bridgmohan on Retirement Fund, Corey Lanerie on Zing Zang and Ricardo Santana Jr. on Combatant.
Pletcher sends Florida maiden winner Road to Damascus with Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, the Pioneer of the Nile colt ($475,000 sales yearling) making his third start and stakes debut. Pletcher and Velazquez won the 2017 Southwest with One Liner, who like this one is owned by WinStar Farm LLC, China Horse Club and SF Racing.
Completing the field are California shipper My Boy Jack, trained by Keith Desormeaux and with his brother, Hall of Famer Kent Desormeaux, named to ride; the Dale Romans-trained Seven Trumpets, a two-time winner at Churchill Downs and last-out second to Grade 1 winner Firenze Fire in the one-mile Jerome at Aqueduct, with Robby Albarado in the saddle; the Lukas-trained Oaklawn maiden winner Kentucky Club, cross-entered in the Risen Star, with Ramon Vazquez; and last-out Oaklawn runner-up Ezmosh, owned by Zayat Stables (American Pharoah) and trained by Brad Cox, with Hall of Famer Gary Stevens up.
Post time is 5:10 p.m. for the 53rd running of the Southwest, listed as race 9 on a 10-race card beginning at 1:05 p.m. One race earlier, at 4:35 p.m., is the 59th running of the Grade 3 $500,000 Razorback Handicap, also at 1 1/16 miles; Gun Runner launched his 2017 Horse-of-the-Year campaign in the Razorback's first February running.
Sports on 02/17/2018