Watershed better than recent form

NEW YORK – The Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby, the last prep for the Kentucky Derby, is Saturday’s main event. There are three other stakes on Oaklawn Park’s card, most notably the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap and the Grade 3, $400,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap.

Keeneland also has four stakes, led by the Grade 1, $350,000 Jenny Wiley and the Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington. The Lexington is for 3-year-olds, but it doesn’t offer enough Derby qualifying points to impact the composition of the Kentucky Derby field.

Ben Ali Stakes

Bird Song earned the best last-out Beyer Speed Figure (a 101) in this undercard stakes at Keeneland in winning the Fred Hooper at Gulfstream and now attempts two turns for the first time. Bird Song figures to be able to handle the stretch-out since he’s by Unbridled’s Song and out of Kentucky Oaks winner Bird Town. But I wonder if the pace setup Saturday is favorable for this venture. Bird Song likes to be involved early, but he could have company up front in the form of Conquest Enforcer and Taketothestreets.

Eagle will have backers because he is 3 for 3 on Keeneland’s main track and won this race last year. However, Eagle was set up to improve in the New Orleans Handicap two weeks ago in his second start back from a layoff but instead never ran a step and seems to be below his best form.

Watershed, who has always threatened to become a good horse, is my play. He was a fine fourth to champion Runhappy in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop in just the second start of his career and turned in a solid effort in winning an allowance route at Saratoga last summer. But Watershed’s more recent form has been darkened to some extent by factors beyond his control.

Slow paces in the Philip H. Iselin and Jockey Club Gold Cup seriously compromised his late kick, and an odd experiment on turf most recently in the Mac Diarmida is best ignored. Watershed won easily two starts back, albeit in an off-the-turf race in the slop, but that outing shows that he hasn’t forgotten how to run, and he’ll love the switch back to dirt Saturday.

Lexington Stakes

Time to Travel is leaping in both class and distance in this spot, but I still like him. Time to Travel finished fourth in a loaded maiden race at Gulfstream in his debut two starts back and came back with an impressive maiden victory on the Florida Derby undercard there.

Time to Travel set the pace, drew off impressively through the stretch, and ran through the wire like a colt craving more distance. Moreover, the 88 Beyer he earned for that effort is about as good as anything anyone else in this field has received, even if he is jumping from the maiden level to stakes.

West Coast and No Dozing aren’t for me. I don’t trust the 91 Beyer that West Coast got when second in his debut to Bronze Age, who came back to be eased as the favorite in the Sunland Derby, and he must do better than his win over two opponents at 1-20 (no typo there!) most recently. No Dozing finished second in a very weak Remsen and was fourth last time in a Tampa Bay Derby that might not have been very strong either.

Arkansas Derby

Classic Empire is so much the best horse here that it’s not even funny. The trouble is that no one knows if he’ll feel like showing up. If he does, like he did in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he’ll romp. But Classic Empire is also the same horse who wheeled at the start of the Hopeful and has at times been unwilling to train. And for all that, you must take a short price.

I don’t want anyone out of the slowly run Rebel, won by Malagacy, who I still think is at his best sprinting. So, I’m taking a flier on Rockin Rudy.

Rockin Rudy ran well when second in his two starts this year. Coming off a 6 1/2-month layoff in the Baffle Stakes, he lost to Conquest Fahrenheit, a most impressive winner of the subsequent Pasadena. And in an allowance last out, he lost to Law Abidin Citizen, who previously had split Iliad and Santa Anita Derby runner-up Battle of Midway in the San Vicente.

Rockin Rudy is going from turf to dirt, but he romped on dirt last summer at Del Mar and is the main speed.