Hail to Oaklawn’s chiefs for top-level racing
HOT SPRINGS — Presidents’ Day was a presidential-like day at the races.
An appetizer for Oaklawn Park’s season-ending Racing Festival of the South.
The big business started in the seventh race, with the Grade III Razorback Handicap, the first of two $500,000 races on the 10-race holiday card.
The Razorback, usually run in March as a prelude to the Oaklawn Handicap, was moved up several weeks and may have found a new home.
Seven others were entered to challenge 1-5 favorite Gun Runner, who was a top 3-yearold last year. But by post time, two horses had scratched and the other five, as it turned out, were running for second.
Gun Runner broke to the lead and was challenged slightly by Blue Tone, a southern California shipper, but Blue Tone needed more than moxie and desire and he would fade badly after making a move going into the final turn.
Gun Runner got stronger as the race unfolded, and by the head of the stretch, he was pulling away to win by nearly 6 lengths in 1:40.97, the fastest time recorded in the Razorback in 29 years.
Of course, he was the only millionaire in the race, having won more than $2 million going into the Razorback. Now he’s up to more than $2.3 million.
Gun Runner, winner of last year’s Louisiana Derby, went into the Kentucky Derby last May considered one of the top contenders, and in his usual style he went for the lead and set some fast fractions before fading to third behind Nyquist and Exaggerator.
Gun Runner didn’t come into Monday’s race looking for a tuneup, although he hadn’t run since November when he won the Grade I Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., which came after finishing second in the Breeder’s Cup Mile a few weeks earlier at Santa Anita.
Gun Runner’s owners, Winchell Thoroughbreds, and trainer Steve Asmussen are considering the $10 million Dubai World Cup next month, and they needed to see how Gun Runner would react to some competition.
He was obviously training well, coming into the race with two bullet works, and regular rider Florent Geroux flew in to ride. Geroux also had the mount on Carve, a hard-running 7-year-old gelding, in the eighth race. Carve is trained by Asmussen and owned by Jonesboro’s Michael Langford.
Carve has won more than $1 million, but the eighth race was more competitive than your typical optional claiming allowance race, as it attracted three shippers and classy horses like Suddenbreakingnews, who finished second last year in the Arkansas Derby and fifth in the Kentucky Derby.
Frank Fletcher’s Rocket Time, one of the shippers, was running hard at the end despite getting bumped, but he couldn’t get past Shotgun Kowboy or runner-up Carve, who gave Geroux a first and second in Oaklawn’s mini-festival.
The $500,000 Southwest Stakes was obviously the day’s big attraction. Oaklawn has become the training track for 3-year-old champions, and Monday’s feature race attracted a field of 12, even after one scratch.
Everybody wanted to see if Uncontested, co-owned by Harry Rosenblum of Little Rock, was as good as he appeared in the Jan. 16 Smarty Jones, when he romped to a victory of more than 5 lengths on a sloppy track.
Uncontested, like most of the field, has already been Triple Crown nominated. But unlike the others, he’s already earned more than double what Rosenblum and co-owner Robert LaPenta paid for him.
Uncontested went out too fast, posting an opening quarter of 22.93. Jockey Channing Hill tried to get Uncontested to rate down the backstretch, but Petrov came at him hard at the head of the stretch.
Petrov got around Uncontested, the 6-5 favorite, but he couldn’t hold off the charge of south Florida shipper One Liner.
One Liner, sent off as the second betting choice for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, ended up in a familiar place for horses trained by Pletcher, ridden by John Velasquez and owned by Winstar Farms — the winner’s circle.