Don't look ahead any more than you might do a week before the richest and oldest race of the Oaklawn season, but Arkansas Derby Day could be especially chaotic at 2705 Central Ave.
That's par for the course when, as on April 1, the track offers four stakes, three of them graded, with Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks qualifying points, respectively, distributed in the G1 Arkansas Derby and G3 Fantasy. Those two races alone have combined purses of $1.85 million with the Derby, dating to 1936, at $1.25 million and the Fantasy as the last major local prep, and an increasingly important one, for the Oaks, last year won by Oaklawn-raced star Secret Oath.
Also carded are the G3 $400,000 Oaklawn Mile, which might age well with history in that it now crowds older, more established events (another name, say the Charles J. Cella, might be in order here). The $200,000 Hot Springs returns to the calendar after the original was renamed for champion sprinter Whitmore.
If that weren't enough, Oaklawn might throw in a birthday party for one of its greatest champions. Zenyatta turns 19 on April 1 and attention must be paid to the star whose 19-for-20 record, two Apple Blossom Handicap wins included, turned her into a crowd favorite on the order of Smarty Jones in 2004, Big Mama's foaling year.
Just before reality strangles invention, quoting the late Red Smith, every television in the plant not tuned to horse racing might be surrounded by Hog-calling Razorback basketball fans. Oaklawn's biggest day falls on the penultimate card, so to speak, of college basketball. That Arkansas might make the Final Four in a season with double-digit losses has entered the discussion off March Madness wins over Illinois and, especially, top seed Kansas.
Then again, Arkansas must get past Connecticut Thursday night and then Gonzaga or UCLA in the West Region final Saturday.
Hyperbole in the first degree is inevitable until Arkansas teams (including women's basketball, another team with an untidy record but finishing strongly, to the WNIT Sweet 16) take the court again and the bandwagon for Dave Van Horn's UA baseball team swelling so quickly that summoning the fire marshals might be in order.
Back to Oaklawn, where as the late Terry Wallace reminded fans that the track kindly will remind when the big races fall but can't promise which horses will run. Go back to 1982, when Hostage ran away with the Arkansas Derby and, with contenders dropping by the wayside, might have been the post-time favorite at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. Omaha Beach looked equally capable in 2019 after winning at Oaklawn and was made the program chalk for the Derby. The late Rick Porter's last good chance to win the great race evaporated when the War Front colt, trained by Richard Mandella, had to be scratched.
Last year's Derby yielded an 80-1 winner, Rich Strike, whose only previous victory came in a one-turn mile at the home track from which he was claimed. Medina Spirit -- think of him as Dancer's Image for those who never saw the disqualified 1968 Derby winner -- ran afoul of the stewards after failing a post-race drug test following his 2021 victory, later rescinded. Maximum Security became the first race-day DQ of a Derby winner in 2019, dampening an otherwise much-celebrated first Derby winner for trainer Bill Mott.
Now that Churchill Downs has declared trainer Bob Baffert an undesirable of sorts, two trainers especially want to win Derby 149, both instantly recognizable to the average Oaklawn patron.
Brad Cox' only race triumph came in 2021 when Medina Spirit (since deceased) had his number taken down and Mandaloun was declared the winner. Cox, frankly, has sent out better horses that might have won the Derby, and one thinks first of Essential Quality in 2021. His barn is brimming with quality as another Derby approaches, and to a Louisville native such as himself, Cox has directed all business in that direction.
Steve Asmussen has more wins (10,000 plus) than any North American trainer though his Derby record is 0-for-24 -- something akin to neither Sam Snead nor Phil Mickelson winning golf's U.S. Open. This from a man who has trained the Horse of the Year four times with three horses (Curlin twice). The thought here is that Asmussen may not be as consumed with winning the Derby as some think, although never think it doesn't weigh on the mind of someone who, as a rival trainer said, "would claim an $8,000 horse at Aqueduct on a Thursday."
Then again, if juvenile champion Forte can be trusted, they all may be running for second underneath Churchill's twin spires on May 1. Likewise, they are prepared to play the Final Four without Arkansas (perish the thought) if necessary and stage the Arkansas Derby even if a program is needed just to sort out the Cox-trained starters.