The Feb. 27 and April 17 cards from the past Oaklawn season call attention to themselves.
Four local winners on those dates cracked the top 10 in the weekly National Thoroughbred Racing Association Top Thoroughbred Poll. Eight have raced at Oaklawn in the last two seasons.
Mystic Guide remains No. 1, followed by Silver State, Letruska, Domestic Spending, Essential Quality, Charlatan, Maxfield, Gamine, Monomoy Girl and Knicks Go. Domestic Spending, a grass specialist, and Maxfield, a stablemate of Mystic Guide, are the only non Oaklawn-raced horses in the poll.
Mystic Guide is 2 for 2 this year, winning the Grade 3 $600,000 Razorback Handicap Feb. 27 at Oaklawn and shipping overseas for the Grade 1 Dubai World Cup March 27. Mike Stidham trains the 4-year-old Ghostzapper colt for Godolphin Stable, which sent out Essential Quality to win the Grade 3 Southwest Feb. 27 for trainer Brad Cox.
Silver State, Letruska and Essential Quality were Grade 1 winners on the Belmont Stakes undercard June 5 in New York.
The 4-year-old Silver State burst upon national radar with three stakes victories at Oaklawn and entered early Horse-of-the-Year discussion with his triumph in Belmont's Metropolitan Handicap. Steve Asmussen trains the Hard Spun colt, winner locally of the Fifth Season, Essex Handicap and Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap for partners including Marshall horseman Willis Horton.
Letruska, a Mexican champion bred in Kentucky, scored a narrow victory in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap April 17 at Oaklawn over 2020 American champions Monomoy Girl and Swiss Skydiver. Trainer Fausto Gutierrez's 5-year-old mare notched a second Grade 1 victory in Belmont's Ogden Phipps.
Essential Quality is the first Southwest winner of the Belmont Stakes. The Tapit colt is 6 for 7 lifetime, winning the Grade 2 Blue Grass April 3 at Keeneland and running fourth when favored in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby May 1.
Cox trains Essential Quality, two-time champion Monomoy Girl and Knicks Go. Monomoy Girl opened her 6-year-old campaign winning Oaklawn's Grade 3 Bayakoa Feb. 28 and suffered only her third loss in 17 starts when second in the Apple Blossom.
Charlatan and Gamine won May 2020 Oaklawn races for trainer Bob Baffert. Both victories were restored by the Arkansas Racing Commission in April after track stewards ruled that the horses be disqualified for positive drug tests.
Knicks Go won a 2020 Oaklawn allowance and finished the year winning the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.
Chip Gehrke, writing for Louisville-based website Horseracingnation.com, ranked Silver State and Mystic Guide one-two with Oaklawn Mile winner By My Standards fourth among older horses. The top four older dirt females in Gehrke's poll raced at Oaklawn: Letruska, Shedaresthedevil, Monomoy Girl and Swiss Skydiver, the 2020 Fantasy winner. Shedaresthedevil, co-owned by Hot Springs horseman Staton Flurry, won the Grade 2 Azeri March 13 at Oaklawn and the Grade 1 La Troienne April 30 at Churchill Downs.
Ranking the Belmont Stakes winner No. 1 among 3-year-olds, Gehrke points out that Essential Quality can become only the third 2-year-old champion to win the Eclipse Award at 3 with no Triple Crown. Spectacular Bid won titles in 1978 and '79 and Lookin at Lucky in 2009 and 2010. Since the advent of the Eclipse Awards in 1973, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed and American Pharoah won the Eclipse at 2 and again the next year as Triple Crown winners.