Friday night under stars with friends
ALTOONA, Iowa — To a weary traveler from Arkansas, the warm greetings extended here Friday were not unexpected — most racing fans I know have at least some social graces — and certainly appreciated.
“What are you doing here?” asked Derron Heldt, vice president of racing here and recently elected to Prairie Meadows’ Hall of Fame. A longtime friend and former Oaklawn Park racing official, Derron might as well have said, “Of all the racetracks in all the towns in all the world, you walk into ours” (paraphrased from “Casablanca”). Perfectly understandable in that I, too, was a little surprised to be in the land of Herbert Hoover on the July 4 weekend.
Then again, Prairie Meadows is another name off the bucket list of tracks I wish to visit. Saratoga and Remington Park were inspected in 2017, and future targets include Santa Anita, Del Mar and Fair Grounds. “You might also consider,” said Coleman Lloyd, another Iowa racing official (clerk of scales) with Oaklawn ties, “Will Rogers Downs (Oklahoma) and Horsemen’s Park (Nebraska).”
A night under the stars in America’s Heartland proved rewarding enough, thank you. Altoona, Iowa, about a dozen miles east of state capital Des Moines, might be overlooked if not for the casino and racetrack off Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 65 (the same 65 that runs north and south through Arkansas before edging into Louisiana past Eudora, hometown of 1960s Razorback football star Cliff Powell). But as with Bossier City, La., and Grand Prairie, Texas, two other suburbs where horses run, Altoona is clearly identified with racing.
Two Grade III events were among the 10 races scheduled — the big four races carrying total value of $850,000, a hefty load of change for a Friday night in a state known for corn fields and political caucuses. Although the graded Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap, inherited from defunct Ak-Sar-Ben (Nebraska spelled backwards) down the road in Omaha, is tops at $300,000, the $250,000 listed Iowa Derby is for 3-year-olds and thus noteworthy.
Not that the 21st Iowa Derby will hold much sway with Eclipse Award voters in that Top Line Growth, now a three-time winner from four starts, got the nod in the judges’ stand (shades of another recent Derby). But in scoring a blow for transparency, something overlooked after Maximum Security’s number was taken down and Country House’s moved up through the first race-day disqualification of a Kentucky Derby winner May
4, the Iowa stewards explained their decision.
In front of the grandstand, Winning Number “moved out off the rail far enough to allow the 4-horse (Shang) to start up on the inside of him and then moved back, forcing No. 4 to check. Therefore, first-place finisher No. 1, Winning Number, is disqualified and placed third,” a state steward said on the Prairie Meadows track feed.
And thus a 17-1 longshot, a Keeneland maiden winner with a last-out triumph at Canterbury Park (two more tracks on the bucket list), paid $10.80 to show. In this bizarre year for a sport that some revere and others revile, a disqualified horse named Winning Number is not out of place.
Shang, one of two Oaklawn-raced Iowa Derby runners, was declared second with stablemate Fluminense fourth. Night Ops, an Oaklawn and Churchill Downs winner for Arkansan Steve Landers, went off favored but didn’t do much running over a speed-favoring strip.
Though elsewhere on this night, Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen could expect a favorable report from top assistant Darren Fleming. Lady Apple, whose three previous wins were at Oaklawn, took the Grade 3
$200,000 Iowa Oaks in a thriller against the Brad Cox-trained Oaklawn winner Ulele. The Asmussen-trained Oaklawn winner Share the Upside finished a close second to D’Rapper in the thrilling $100,000 Iowa Sprint Handicap. D’Rapper and Glory
Stars, the only other horse in the Iowa Sprint, were claimed off Oaklawn victories this year.
It was good to see Danny Caldwell, Oaklawn’s dominant owner until Michael Sisk’s M and M Racing arrived in full force, smiling again after D’Rapper won for the third time at Prairie Meadows off a $40,000 March transaction. Lynn Chleborad, one of the nicest people in racing, hugged an old friend from Hot Springs after Clear Creedence, a Midshipman filly she trains and co-owns, beat maiden claimers. Before that, Oaklawn winners Serengeti, Guska Mon Shoes and Smart Spree were the only participants in a starter allowance.
It was asking too much of Exulting and Exclamation Point to reprise their one-two finish in the $250,000 Oaklawn Invitational May 3, neither Arkansas-owned horse cracking the top four in the Cornhusker. But for first-time Prairie Meadows visitors Michael Hui (Little Rock) and Staton Flurry (Hot Springs), as for myself, the experience was grand. Flurry, who with his mom runs a parking lot across from Oaklawn, had a 6 a.m. flight Saturday out of Des Moines to be in time for the 3:15 p.m. Louisiana Downs race of his 3-year-old colt Trivista, a full brother to 2017 Grade 3 Southwest winner One Liner.
Consider Friday night’s visit a political caucus for racetrack aficionados. It won’t surprise me if we all meet again at some other track before Oaklawn calls us home in January. As for Iowa, the hotel receptionist said, “Sometimes the first snow comes in October and sometimes it’s in December — but it always comes.”