It's never too early to talk about the next year's Kentucky Derby, even if the first Saturday in May is more than five months away.
Oaklawn's earliest season opener Dec. 3 includes the inaugural running of the $150,000 Advent, its first stakes race for 2-year-olds since 1973. Oaklawn's first points race for the 2022 Kentucky Derby falls Jan. 1 with the $150,000 Smarty Jones, followed by the Grade 3 $750,000 Southwest and the Grade 2 $1 million Rebel Feb. 26. Those are preps for the richest race in Oaklawn history, the Grade 1 $1.25 million Arkansas Derby, five weeks before Kentucky Derby 148 May 7 at Churchill Downs.
The 28th running of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile today at Del Mar should define the current 2-year-old class and establish favorites for the 3-year-old preps. Last year's Juvenile at Keeneland proved especially formful with winner Essential Quality taking the Belmont Stakes and runner-up Hot Rod Charlie placing third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont.
Like the NFL Draft in evaluating college-football players turning pro, the BC Juvenile has not been the surefire Derby prep anticipated when Chief's Crown won the first running in 1984. Street Sense (2006) and Nyquist (2015) are the only Juvenile winners to take the next year's Derby. Essential Quality suffered his only defeat in nine starts when fourth in the Derby. The list of beaten horses includes 1997 Horse of the Year Favorite Trick.
Still, no sooner than the Breeders' Cup Juvenile is declared official than Oaklawn mulls over which horses might be seen in Arkansas the next season.
Classic Empire, a 3-year-old in 2017, is the only horse to pair up victories in the Juvenile and Arkansas Derby. Trainer Mark Casse shipped the colt to Oaklawn for the last Kentucky Derby qualifying race after a rocky training period in Florida. Empire Maker's son ran a troubled fourth at Churchill Downs and second by a head in the Preakness. His first crop of horses hit the track this year.
Favorite Trick suffered his first career defeat when third in the Arkansas Derby. "I knew we were in trouble the first time under the wire," said Bill Mott, taking over the horse's training from Patrick Byrne, after the heavy favorite tired chasing a longshot pacesetter. Victory Gallop, trained by Elliott Walden, won the race and later took the Belmont Stakes.
Essential Quality is the only other Juvenile winner to capture an Oaklawn stakes, rolling to victory in the Grade 3 Southwest Feb. 27. The Tapit colt and 5-year-old Knicks Go give trainer Brad Cox a strong one-two punch in Saturday's $6 million Classic.
A look at the Juvenile field reveals some possible 2022 Oaklawn starters depending on the outcome.
Bob Baffert has won the Arkansas Derby four times, including both legs of the split 2020 race (Charlatan, Nadal) and with future Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in 2015. The Hall of Famer has three starters in the race with 5-2 second choice Corniche, Barossa and Pinehurst.
(Baffert, however, is suspended at Churchill Downs through 2023 over a failed drug test including 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit. His horses have not received any qualification points for the 2022 Derby, Corniche winning a Grade 1 race at Santa Anita Oct. 1.)
Newly elected Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, with a record five Arkansas Derby winners and two in the BC Juvenile, sends out the maiden Commandperformance and Grade 3 winner Double Thunder. Commandperformance is highly regarded off his last-out second in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park.
Odds go up whether the Juvenile winner comes to Arkansas if it's Jack Christopher, the 9-5 favorite. Trainer Chad Brown, a former assistant to the late Bobby Frankel, has avoided Oaklawn since a grim 2008 season that his only local winner was disqualified. A four-time Eclipse Award winner as outstanding trainer and especially strong with turf horses and with fillies and mares, Brown scored his only Triple Crown victory with Cloud Computing in the 2017 Preakness. His best Derby finish is second with Juvenile Magic Good Magic against Justify in 2018.
Jack Christopher, by Munnings, won his Saratoga opener by almost nine lengths Aug. 28 and repeated by almost three lengths in the Oct. 2 Champagne. The chestnut colt earned a 102 Beyer Speed Figure, highest of any Juvenile starter, in the Champagne. Jose Ortiz keeps the mount for Brown, winner of 15 Breeders' Cup races and leading trainer at the just-completed fall meet at Belmont.
Baffert has the two other Grade 1 winners in the field, Pinehurst (Del Mar Futurity, 8-1) and Corniche (American Pharoah, 5-2). Commandperformance, 5-1 with Irad Ortiz Jr. up, is the only non-winner of the 12 entered in the mile-and-sixteenth race.
Post time for the Juvenile, race 9 on the card, is 6:50 p.m. CDT.