Shippers hold sway in $900K Rebel Stakes
Under azure skies and calm winds, an estimated crowd of
36,000 at Oaklawn Park experienced Arkansas weather at its finest on what is informally called Rebel Saturday.
Milling about in the grandstand, one could shake hands with a member of the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame. Music producer Jerry Moss, who along with trumpeter Herb Alpert formed A&M Records, returned to Oaklawn almost seven years after the second Apple Blossom Handicap victory for his supermare Zenyatta. Along with trainer John Shirreffs, Moss was on hand to watch his Kentucky Derby prospect Royal Mo in the featured $900,000 Rebel Stakes.
With Royal Mo ninth and favored American Anthem 10th in the 11-horse field, two of the three California-based Rebel entrants had a lost weekend in Hot Springs. But for some other shippers, the race, like the day itself, proved bright and shining.
Malagacy, like stablemate One Liner in Oaklawn’s Grade 3 Southwest a month earlier, put on a show in the Rebel, belying his inexperience with a twolength victory in only his third start and acing his two-turn debut. The first Rebel winner for Todd Pletcher, Malagacy gives his Florida-based trainer another option for the April
15 running of the Grade 1 $1 million Arkansas Derby and the May 6 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Sonneteer’s second-place finish at 112-1 odds rocked the toteboard, giving the now ninerace maiden 20 points toward a possible Kentucky Derby start. Long-memoried fans might remember that maiden Riverside Sam upset favored Wardlaw (the latter owned by Dan Lasater when the Arkansan dominated the national standings) in the 1976 Rebel. Clear Choice finished second to undefeated Rare Brick in the 1986 Rebel before beating fellow non-winners in his next start with more press coverage than an Oaklawn maiden race usually receives.
“I’m not going to stand here and say that I knew he could do it when he’s sitting there at 1001, which I can understand,” said Sonneteer trainer Keith Desormeaux. “But the horse has been running quality races in California against quality competition. I love the setup, backing him up to seven-eighths and then stretching out again. And physically he was doing so well. I had to give him a shot.”
Untrapped finished third in his Oaklawn debut, technically as a shipper although his two stakes seconds in New Orleans were well documented and his owner, Mike Langford of Jonesboro, is a longtime Oaklawn patron.
Langford has been trying for years to win the Arkansas Derby, and if the colt comes around for Steve Asmussen in the next four weeks like Creator did for the Hall of Fame trainer after the 2016 Rebel, Untrapped (perhaps with an equipment change) could run the biggest race of his life April 15.
“I think Untrapped will appreciate a little more time between races,” said Asmussen, “but you watch the replay and I’ll decide whether putting blinkers on him or not. You can see where he dropped the bridle down the backstretch, and it forced him to start holding position. But it was his first race here …. (and) I’ll see how he trains.”
Another whose best race might lie ahead is Petrov, fourth in the Rebel after a photo finish involving Sonneteer and Untrapped.
“Tough beat for second getting beat by a head,” said jockey Jose Ortiz, giving up mounts in New York to ride Petrov at Oaklawn for the third time.
Petrov is a grinder, one who lacks the sudden burst of speed that distinguishes more brilliant horses but a warrior just the same. In five starts, the
Flatter colt has a maiden victory, three stakes seconds and an excruciating fourth-place finish.
“We don’t get a chance to ever get clear,” said Petrov co-owner and trainer Ron Moquett. “You don’t want to run fourth when you run second by a nose.
Among the others, Silver Dust got high marks from the soft-spoken Randy Morse after running fifth in the Rebel while Uncontested, Oaklawn’s Smarty Jones winner in January, had no apparent excuse as a tiring eighth-place finisher.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to go that far,” Uncontested co-owner Harry Rosenblum, of Little Rock, shared after the race. For an Arkansan with Derby dreams, few sadder words could be heard at Oaklawn on Rebel Saturday.