Guideposts for unusual Derby Day

Three things I think I know about closing day at Oaklawn Park and how it affects what a friend in Louisville, Ky, calls “the greatest game.”

(1) A Grade 1 race shouldn’t be a warm-up act, especially not a Kentucky Derby prep, but Charlatan so dominates the first division of the Arkansas Derby that it’ll register 9 (maybe 10) on the Richter Scale of upsets if he doesn’t win Saturday. With the scratch of Shooters Shoot, Charlatan likely goes off at minimum

1-9 odds. And why not: Undefeated in both starts and with a combined winning margin of 16 lengths, he is the only first-division Derby starter to lead at the first call of a race. The nine others are 0-for-50 at the first checkpoint.

Contrarians will cite the usual warnings — that it’s his first race outside California — Grade

1, to boot — and, like SoCal invader Bellafina in last weekend’s Carousel Stakes, the big favorite might break a step slow from the rail post. His sire is Speightstown, a champion sprinter who never won past seven furlongs; his lightly raced dam, Silken Cat (by Storm Cat), won a stakes race at 2 going 1 1/16 miles but in a four-horse field.

Beyond that, you’re matching wits with Bob Baffert, for whom this is standard operating procedure. American Pharoah, you might remember, gained his maiden victory in a Grade 1 race. Baffert doesn’t get the credit he deserves for instilling a young horse’s foundation. One can take on faith that a youngster from the Baffert barn has undergone rigorous and ennobling training. And that, although no one in this business wins them all, the silver-haired man from California doesn’t send one across country on a whim.

Without Shooters Shoot, whom he outran in his career debut, to pressure the pace, and unless Basin, last year’s Grade

1 Hopeful winner for Steve Asmussen, runs big in the third race of his 3-year-old form cycle, Charlatan could, should win his half of the Derby by open lengths.

(2) Nadal is Baffert’s “other” Arkansas Derby starter in the sense that Coaltown was for Calumet Farm when stablemate Citation won the 1948 Kentucky Derby. Few Oaklawn winners check all the boxes, as the saying goes, like Nadal in the March 14 Grade 2 Rebel, even though the Blame colt’s Derby task looms more forbidding than Charlatan’s.

We learned in the mile-andsixteenth Rebel that Nadal can beat good horses on the lead. He turned scare stories — first start outside California, first race around two turns, first time on wet track — into false alarms.

That was one powerful bit of racing when Nadal dueled Grade

1 winner American Theorem down the backstretch, last-out stakes winner No Parole backing out of contention after a 46-second opening half. Though the late-running Excession trimmed his final margin to three quarters of a length, Nadal turned for home with a clear lead, good as advertised.

American Pharoah’s 2015 Rebel triumph was similar. His subsequent Arkansas Derby victory, coming off the pace, furthered the colt’s education. Blessed with a cruising speed like few horses in history, AP next ran down the game Firing Line in the stretch at Churchill Downs.

Nadal, 5-2 program favorite, has been groomed for such an effort, working in company at Santa Anita and popping three “bullet” works since the Rebel. In his holster are five-furlong screamers of 59 4-5 and 59 1-5 seconds, plus a three-quarter split of 1:11 4-5. The speed is there if needed, though the presence of front-running Louisiana Derby winner Wells Bayou may change things.

Steve Haskin’s prerace analysis of Charlatan applies somewhat to Nadal, who put away an early challenger going seven

furlongs in the Grade 2 San Vicente Feb. 9, his second career start. Writes Haskin on Bloodhorse.com: “From strictly a Kentucky Derby standpoint the last thing you want to see is for him to inherit an easy lead and just cruise around there. We will learn nothing from that. We already know he is deadly on the lead.”

The Arkansas Derby’s second division gains intrigue if Wells Bayou clears the field from post 10. We could see Nadal challenge Wells Bayou early, although pressing the pace from post 5 would be more to Joel Rosario’s liking to save something late against stalkers and closers.

King Guillermo, toteboard-rocking winner of the Tampa Bay Derby, is 3-1 program second choice and highly regarded. Haskin writes of the Florida invader, “All signs point to him being sharp and fit and ready to run a corker.”

Farmington Road, getting an extra sixteenth of a mile in the stretch after closing for second in the Oaklawn Stakes, is worth a win saver. And what is one to do with Silver Prospector, the Grade 3 Southwest winner (over Wells Bayou) but overmatched in the Rebel? Decisions, decisions.

(3) The Oaklawn Handicap again is a victim of circumstances, this time serving as a halftime show for the Arkansas Derby. Think of it as Game 7 of the 1975 World Series, the Reds beating the Red Sox 4-3 at Fenway Park after Carlton Fisk waved one fair in the 12th inning of Game 6. The esteemed baseball writer Roger Angell called Game 7 “a great play that opened on the night after the opening of King Lear.”

This was to be the year that the Oaklawn Handicap enjoyed something of a coming-out party, originally booked on April 18 alongside the Grade

1 Apple Blossom. Those two jewels for older horses were to be Oaklawn’s first

$1 million races other than the Arkansas Derby. Those plans went awry after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Oaklawn to reschedule races and slash purses just to stay open.

But even without the star-crossed champion Maximum Security, whose place in history is uncertain despite crossing the finish line first in the Kentucky Derby and the $20 million Saudi Cup, the Oaklawn Handicap (Grade

2, now $600,000) has the Breeders’ Cup-caliber field it once enjoyed before the sultans overseas opened their vaults to the world’s best horses.

Try picking a favorite in a 14-horse field with 11 stakes winners. The dart here lands on Warrior’s Charge, whose Grade 3 Razorback Handicap victory Feb. 17 came by only a head, under fire throughout, but wk

ith a breather by jockey Florent Geroux.

Some others to consider:

• Combatant, whose 2018 Oaklawn victory for Steve Asmussen seems in another lifetime, returns as a freshly minted Grade 1 (Santa Anita Handicap) winner for John Sadler.

• By My Standards, a multiple stakes winner at Fair Grounds for Bret Calhoun, becomes the choice if the race for some reason is moved to New Orleans.

• Tacitus makes his American

4-year-old debut on the first Saturday in May after placed third through disqualification in the Kentucky Derby on the corresponding calendar date last year. With Country House moved up to first on Maximum Security’s DQ, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott had a

1-3 finish in America’s race, although one wished the circumstances were different. Later the Belmont Stakes and Travers favorite, Tacitus (by Tapit) is the first foal of Apple Blossom winner

Close Hatches for internationally famous Juddmonte Farms.

• Wouldn’t it be something if Bravazo, the 2018 Preakness runner-up, turned back the clock for Wayne Lukas and Improbable, second in all three Oaklawn starts, the same for Bob Baffert?

If not, we can always reflect on past Oaklawn Handicaps, this being the 25th anniversary of Cigar’s victory over Silver Goblin and the 45th of Warbucks’ in a four-horse photo finish. A highschool classmate held a $50 show ticket on favored Navajo in ‘75, thinking he won the race – only to learn that he ran fourth. Don’t know if they bet or not, but some friends at Harding College were tipped on Warbucks.

Need anyone be reminded that horse racing, the greatest game, is built on hopes and dreams. Enjoy Derby Day!