Staton Flurry may be young, but he has been around horses and Oaklawn for as long as he can remember.
The 31-year-old thoroughbred owner and Spa City native grew up tending his family's parking lots across from the racetrack, and he quickly fell in love with the sport.
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"Well, growing up in Hot Springs, this town lives and breathes racing, and my family has owned the parking lots across the street from Oaklawn for decades, even before I was born," he said. "So I grew up out there and just ran back and forth across the street when we had some customers that had horses run, whether its owners, trainers, different people that parked with us. 'Hey, come over watch our horse run,' and just fell in love with it early on."
Also a motorsports fan, part of what drew Flurry into racing was the competition aspect.
"I grew up I was always a big motorsports fan -- NASCAR, dirt track racing. ... The racing competition in this, it's definitely a better outlet, a more affordable outlet, and more people can be involved," he said. "I grew up a quarter mile from Oaklawn. So, it's home; it's home. It's somewhere I've always wanted to compete and win."
After graduating from Henderson State University in 2012, Flurry claimed his first horse.
"Second race we ran, we won, and it's kind of been all downhill since -- been hooked," he said with a laugh.
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"There's so many great people on the backside," Flurry said. "It's been fun to getting to know different ones, even if they're not part of my team. I've become friends with so many different outfits and joke with them in the mornings and celebrate with them in the afternoon. It's definitely been really fun getting to do that."
While most people recognize Shedaresthedevil, a 4-year-old filly that has won multiple Grade 1 stakes, including the Sept. 4, 2020, Kentucky Oaks by 1 1/2 lengths over Swiss Skydiver, the biggest success Flurry had prior to the Daredevil filly was a horse that never ran at Oaklawn, Mr. Misunderstood.
"He won five or six graded stakes on the turf, won the Grade 2 Wise Dan (at Churchill Downs)," Flurry said. "Never got that Grade 1 (win), but we ran in several Grade 1s and got close but never got the picture made. But he's definitely the one that kind of put me on the upward trajectory in this sport -- just from him winning so much definitely helped build the the bank account up to buy a better horse like Shedaresthedevil, and we bought several really nice yearlings and 2-year-olds in the last few years. So we're headed definitely in the upward direction."
Following her sixth-place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Distaff at Del Mar last month, Shedaresthedevil was purchased, but Flurry and Qatar Racing, owned by Sheikh Fahad al Thani, retained partial ownership.
"She sold the other day, and Mandy Pope bought her," Flurry said. "She asked Sheikh Fahad and I to stay in for a piece. So she'll be back here is the plan. I think the Azeri will probably be her starting point for her 5-year-old career, then Apple Blossom and think it's going to be a great partnership with Mandy."
Shedaresthedevil will be back at Oaklawn this season racing under Flurry's silks.
"Everything's just ran smooth so far, but she approached us. She said, 'Is there any, I guess, discrepancies or anything that we could work out.' I said, 'Man, the only thing I ask is we run my silks at Oaklawn if we run at Oaklawn,' and she said, 'No problem at all.' And the rest is just kind of been easy. Easy, go with the flow," he said.
While Shedaresthedevil has been his greatest success thus far, one of his aims going forward is to win the Arkansas Derby, which is why he has trended toward purchasing more colts than fillies to this point.
"My ultimate goal I tell everybody is I want to win the Arkansas Derby more than anything," he said. "So looking at the yearling and 2-year-old sales, I do try to buy more colts than than fillies, but you have to have a little bit of both. Hey, the fillies in the long run, unless you hit a homerun with the colts, fillies in the long run have more residual value because of the breeding aspect. But for my goals, I do have more colts than fillies right now."
Flurry said that the decision to move the Oaklawn season up to December is a good one as there are fewer opportunities to run in December and January. He said that it will also help boost the city's economy during a part of the year that sees fewer travelers.
"I love it," he said. "I think it's gonna be excellent. First off for the city because December, the first part of January is usually kind of the slower time in town, so you get the people here for pretty much all of December that first part of January on the weekends, definitely going to boost the economy around here.
"And two, that time's a dead time for for racing, too. Churchill's closed. You've got some people going to Fairgrounds, and you've got a few people still left at Remington, but for the most part, the majority that come here to Oaklawn, it's kind of the dead time. So to fill that gap I think is definitely going to be beneficial for everybody."
Flurry said that while Oaklawn might not see as many familiar faces running early this year, going forward it should pick up.
"I think it's going to take a little bit of time getting used to you because I do know some people usually turn their horses out October, November to try to give them a little break, then get them ready for the first part of Oaklawn," he said. "But I think they're going to do some changing around on their turnout time. I think it's going to really start after this year, they're going to get a feel of how it's going and really become a central part of the racing calendar in the country."