Gray Attempt cutting back

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Gray Attempt is a candidate for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby next month at Oaklawn Park, and his final steppingstone toward that goal comes Saturday in the track’s $125,000 Gazebo.

The Gazebo is a six-furlong race for 3-year-olds that drew a compact but classy field. The group of six includes Nitrous, who was third in last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga; Six Shooter, a stakes winner who has run fourth in both the Grade 3 Southwest and Smarty Jones; and Once we were brothers, who is making his stakes debut off back-to-back wins at Oaklawn.

Also on the card Saturday is the $100,000 Nodouble led by Hoonani Road.

Gray Attempt established himself as one of the meet’s top 3-year-olds with his win in the $150,000 Smarty Jones on Jan. 25. He proceeded to the Southwest and, after breaking well from the rail, was immediately caught up in a first-turn scuffle and ended up 11th. The race set him back physically, and his connections bypassed last weekend’s Rebel at Oaklawn.

“I lost so much training I couldn’t run him in the Rebel,” said Jinks Fires, who trains Gray Attempt for Dwight Pruett. “So we decided we’ll run him back sprinting – and maybe he’ll forget about that first turn, too.

“Horses think about those things. If they get wiped out on a turn or something, next time out they’re a little cautious about things. It’s like a young horse who bumps his hip going into a stall. It takes forever to get them over that mentally. So, we’ve been working on him ever since he got put into the rail. He twisted his back end, got sore up in the back end. We’ve been trying to get him straightened out. He’s been doing well.”

Gray Attempt worked five furlongs in 1:01.40 in his final prep March 16 at Oaklawn.

“He looks perfect right now,” Fires said Tuesday. “We breezed him a couple of days ago, just a maintenance work, and he looked like he was full of it, wanted to go on.”

Jon Court has the mount from post 5, taking over for the sidelined Shaun Bridgmohan. Gray Attempt, who won the $74,000 Sugar Bowl at Fair Grounds on the front end in December and also wired the field in the Smarty Jones, could control the pace Saturday. However, the outside draw might give Court some options, if needed.

“We don’t believe he has to be on the front end,” Fires said.

Once we were brothers faced Gray Attempt back in November, finishing second to that one in a maiden special weight sprint at Churchill Downs. Since the start, Once we were brothers has won his subsequent races, a maiden special weight and a first-level allowance, both at Oaklawn. In the allowance on Feb. 24, he was a half-length winner over a field that included Market King, who came back to run third in the second division of the Rebel.

“He ran a game race,” trainer Jimmy DiVito said of Once we were brothers .“He looked like he was beat at the head of the stretch and he came back and won. I was pleased with that.”

◗ Hoonani Road is putting a perfect Oaklawn record on the line in the Nodouble, which is a six-furlong race for 3-yearolds and up bred in Arkansas. He is 4 for 4 over the local strip and comes off a dominant allowance win over some of the same rivals he faces Saturday. Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount for Jerry Caroom and trainer Wayne Catalano.