RUNNING AWAY
Jockey Martin Garcia and Charlatan, right, lead the field in deep stretch on their way to win the first division of the Arkansas Derby on Saturday at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort. Nadal, with jockey Joel Rosario on board, went on to win the second division of the Derby.
Like Mozart behind a piano or Picasso with a brush, the artist known as Charlatan has a certain style. Yet as his reputation soars, he remains a prodigy, his masterpiece perhaps in the offing.
Three races into a career that began Feb.
16 and includes no losses or even a serious challenge, trainer Bob Baffert’s latest marvel is reaching superstardom. A subplot involves whether Charlatan is the best 3-year-old in the Hall of Famer’s barn. As long he as can keep Charlatan and Nadal separated, Baffert will be satisfied if a head-to-head matchup does not come sooner than Sept. 5, the date of the rescheduled 146th Kentucky Derby.
Charlatan, with the cruising speed one looks for in a horse but seldom sees, turned the first division of the 84th Arkansas Derby Saturday into a one-horse parade at Oaklawn Park. Though some past Derby winners competed against stronger fields, few performed with the elegance that the chestnut colt displayed in his first Grade 1 race. Six lengths clear of Basin at the wire, his combined winning margin now 26 lengths, Charlatan still has not been headed in competition.
Previously ridden by Drayden Van Dyke, Martin Garcia took Charlatan around the track in his stakes debut and first race outside California. That the favorite might break slowly became moot when Charlatan got away cleanly from the rail post and carved out intermediate fractions that would discourage lesser opponents. He led by two lengths after six furlongs in 1:09.68 and by
4 1/2 lengths after a mile in 1:35.33 — what racetrackers call racehorse time.
“He just took me to the winner’s circle,” Garcia said. “I can say I am really lucky to ride him. Mr. Baffert and the owners had a lot of choices. They pick me. I just did my job.
“They told me we were smoking,” Garcia said. “I went in 1:09, and he was just galloping. He did it all within himself. I felt someone coming at the three-eighths (pole), and I let him go. He just took off. That’s a sign of a really good horse.”
Charlatan went the fast-rated nine furlongs in 1:48.49, as a non-stakes winner carrying 118 pounds under allowance conditions. Even-money program favorite, Charlatan paid $2.80, $2.60 and $2.10, his odds rising to 2-5 at post time after long sitting at the minimum 1-9.
Besides $300,000 for the victory, the Kentucky-bred colt earned 100 points for a start in the Kentucky Derby, which Baffert has won five times — twice (American Pharoah and Justify) with future Triple Crown winners.
Basin, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner at Saratoga for Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, held second by a neck over Saratoga maiden winner and Grade 1-placed Gouverneur Morris. Anneau d’Or, runner-up in last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Juvenile at Santa Anita, ran fifth.
In a virtual merry-go-round race, Charlatan and Basin ran one-two around the track with 32-1 longshot Crypto Cash third early before headed by Todd Pletcher-trained Gouverneur Morris.
Basin, said Asmussen, “was in hot pursuit the whole way. He hung in there really well. Solid fractions. I thought Ricardo (Santana Jr.) gave him every shot. He just finished second best.”
Trainer Blaine Wright’s plans with Anneau d’Or went awry when the Medaglia d’Oro colt “broke a little flat-footed” under Juan Hernandez. “Then he had to use him a little to get some position. We knew that horse (Charlatan) had lone speed.
“Man, what a horse he turned out to be,” Wright said. “He’s in a different league.”
So were Mozart and Picasso. And to think, Charlatan is just getting started.