Hall of Fame trainer and Eclipse Award finalist Steve Asmussen has four of the 10 horses entered in the $150,000 Smarty Jones, Oaklawn Park's first major prep race for the 146th Kentucky Derby.
Brad Cox, another Eclipse finalist, also is represented along with trainers Mark Casse, Jeremiah Englehart, Ingrid Mason and Peter Miller. The Smarty Jones, honoring the beloved 2004 winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and three Oaklawn preps including the Arkansas Derby, is at one mile and scheduled as race 8 on Friday's opening-day card. Post time is set at 3:52 p.m.
Nucky, trained by Miller, won the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity in September, a race that produced two Grade 1 winners at Santa Anita: Eight Rings in the American Pharoah and Storm the Court in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Eight Rings, trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, is being pointed to Oaklawn's Grade 2 Rebel March 14 along with the Asmussen-trained Grade 1 Hopeful winner Basin.
Asmussen's Smarty Jones group includes Silver Prospector, a Grade 2 winner in the fall at Churchill Downs, and Shoplifted, the recent Springboard Mile winner at Remington Park. Shoplifted, sired by the prolific Into Mischief, worked five furlongs over a fast-rated Oaklawn surface in 1:01 Thursday. Silver Prospector, by Declaration of War, has been assigned Ricardo Santana Jr., Oaklawn's premier jockey of the last decade, and drew post No. 2.
Asmussen's other Smarty Jones starters, breaking side by side in posts 5 and 6 with Shoplifted in No. 7, are Jungle Runner (by Candy Ride) and Gold Street (Street Boss). Tyler Gaffalione, last year's Preakness-winning rider of Will to Win, has the mount on Gold Street, and Ramon Vazquez rides Jungle Runner.
Miguel Mena rides Lynn's Map for Mark Casse, trainer of 2017 Arkansas Derby winner Classic Empire and last year's Preakness and Belmont Stakes winners (Sir Winston). Three Technique, owned by retired Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells, makes his stakes debut in the Smarty Jones for New York-based trainer Englehart, who has a string of horses at Oaklawn. Eclipse Award finalist and 2018 champion jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. has the mount on Three Technique, sired by Mr Speaker.
Terry Thompson rides Lykan from the rail post for Mason, Oaklawn's most successful female trainer of recent years.
The Smarty Jones is one of four Oaklawn stakes that 3-year-olds may earn points for the Kentucky Derby with 10 to Friday's winner, 4 for second place, 2 for third and 1 for fourth. Completing the local series are the Grade 3 $750,000 Southwest Feb. 17, the Rebel March 14 and the Grade 1 $1 million Arkansas Derby April 11. The Kentucky Derby is May 2 at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
Gray Attempt, owned by Dwight Pruett of Texarkana and trained by veteran Jinks Fires, won last year's Smarty Jones and later took Oaklawn's six-furlong Gazebo.
Sports on 01/18/2020