OAKLAWN: Pletcher says Derby likely for Rebel winner

Like cars off an assembly line, Todd Pletcher keeps sending lightly raced

3-year-olds to Oaklawn Park for Kentucky Derby prep races.

So does Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, who like Pletcher is a graduate of the Race Track Industry Program at the University of Arizona. Baffert-trained

3-year-olds have won 13 Derby preps in this decade, yet Pletcher isn’t doing badly, winning two such races last year and another on St. Patrick’s Day.

Winning a second straight Rebel Stakes, Pletcher can aim for a record fifth Arkansas Derby crown April 14. Pletcher called the Grade 1 $1 million Arkansas Derby the “most likely and most logical spot” for Magnum Moon, Saturday’s Rebel winner by 3 1/2 lengths over the Baffert-trained favorite Solomini.

Owned by longtime Oaklawn patrons Robert and Lawana Low (Springfield, Mo.), Magnum Moon aced his stakes debut in his third start. The 50 points he earned for the victory moved him to fifth on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, according to a Churchill Downs release Sunday.

“We felt like we had a very talented colt,” Pletcher said in a phone interview with reporters. “We were very pleased with his last two races. But, this was a step up in class and running against accomplished, seasoned colts. We were confident that he was training very well, coming into it in great shape and just hoping he could handle the continued rise in class.”

Magnum Moon won the Rebel two races after the Pletcher-trained Hedge Fund romped in the ungraded $300,000 Essex Handicap. The 4-year-old Hedge Fund had the best mile-and-sixteenth time of Saturday’s three Oaklawn stakes winners, 1:42.06, though Magnum Moon, in 1:42.68, is the fastest Rebel winner since Smarty Jones ran 1:42.07 in 2004.

“They both came back very well,” said Pletcher assistant Ginny DePasquale, who saddled the horses in Pletcher’s absence. “Both came back in good shape.”

Solomini ran a strong second in his

3-year-old debut, though outkicked by Magnum Moon down the stretch. Solomini earned 20 points in the Derby standings, the Steve Asmussen-trained pair of Combatant (10) and Title Ready

(5) getting the rest of the Rebel allotment. The Arkansas Derby, won last year by 2016 juvenile champion Classic Empire, is worth 100 points to the winner with a 40-20-10 breakdown for the next three finishers.

Sporting Chance, a Grade 1-winning

2-year-old for Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas, is in danger of missing the Kentucky Derby after placing fifth in the Rebel. Sporting Chance’s Hopeful Stakes victory, his last start at

2, came in a non-points race and the Tiznow colt has only 2 points, placing third in Oaklawn’s Grade 3 $500,000 Southwest Feb. 19.

Wide early, Sporting Chance could not summon a stretch kick and finished 5 3/4 lengths back. Though Lukas employed Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, last year’s Kentucky Derby winner aboard the Pletcher-trained Always Dreaming, Luis Saez gave up the mount on Sporting Chance to stay aboard Magnum Moon in the Rebel.

Lukas took the defeat hard, though the four-time Derby winner still has Bravazo (54 points) in contention for the May 5 classic off the colt’s Risen Star upset at Fair Grounds.

“It’s hard for me to handle that one because I thought I had him trained to the minute,” Lukas said. “I really felt like he would run a monster race, and he didn’t. He flattened out a little bit. He had a decent trip. I was disappointed in him. Don’t have a lot of explanations, but he did come back out good.”

* Sunday’s $82,000 feature race, an entry-level allowance for 3-year-olds, provided a stretch duel between two horses sired by classic winners.

Tenfold (Curlin) edged Navistar (Union Rags) by a neck, Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen saddling the winner and Pletcher shipping the runner-up from Florida with Magnum Moon and Hedge Fund.

Tenfold, unbeaten in two starts at Oaklawn both over a mile and sixteenth, was clocked in 1:44.16, paying $3.20 to win as odds-on favorite. Third, 3 1/4 lengths behind Navistar, was Shortleaf Stable’s Plainsman, an early-season longshot winner over the track for trainer Bill VanMeter.

Tenfold is owned by longtime Asmussen clients Ron and Joan Winchell, whose Gun Runner won Oaklawn’s Grade 3 Razorback Handicap in his 4-year-old debut en route to horseof-the-year honors in 2017. Navistar, owned by Robert LaPenta, made his Oaklawn debut in his fourth start, scratching from January’s Smarty Jones Stakes after Pletcher could not arrange plane travel from Florida.