Rebel offers class test, $1M for Derby hopefuls
It’s not something track officials are particularly interested in advertising, but 2021 is the year of the mega-trainer at Oaklawn.
Through Thursday’s nine races, roughly the halfway point of the 57-day season, three trainers had won 30.6% of the 186 races. Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen led the standings 22-21 over defending champion Robertino Diodoro with reigning Eclipse Award winner Brad Cox third at 14. From there, it’s a drop-off to Federico Villafranco and Jason Barkley tied for fourth with 7.
Not surprisingly, those three have saddled the most starters — Asmussen with 94, Diodoro with 70, Cox with 51 — with each winning at a better than 20% clip.
Lest anyone think they’re doing it mostly with claimers, take a look at today’s Grade 2 Rebel Stakes, the first $1 million race of the season. Each of the big three has a Kentucky Derby contender trying for the 50 qualifying points the Rebel winner receives for the May 1 classic at Churchill Downs.
Cox, with two other contenders for the Derby, sends out Caddo River, the 9-5 program favorite off his Jan. 22 romp in the track’s Smarty Jones mile. Diodoro counters with Grade 2 winner Keepmeinmind in his 3-year-old debut while Asmussen, trying to fill his hand in the one major race that has eluded him, enters Super Stock and Big Lake.
It wouldn’t be Rebel Saturday, of course, without seven-time race winner Bob Baffert. The Hall of Famer has Concert Tour, the early 2-1 second choice, and outsider Hozier in the race he won last year with Nadal. The trainer has 15 victories in Kentucky Derby prep races at Oaklawn since 2010.
“I think Caddo River is definitely the horse to beat,” Baffert said. “Cox is tough right now. He’s got some nice horses and does a great job. And Keepmemind ran a great race (when third) in the Breeders’ Cup. He’s a good horse.
Bottom line, said Baffert: “You want to move forward. You just want to make a forward progression. They have to run first or second, to me. They’ve got to run first or second.”
Post time is 5:16 p.m. for race 11, last of five stakes on a 12-race card starting at noon.
Though sentiment will not sway the outcome, Caddo River races in the
familiar chocolate and brown silks of Hot Springs lumberman John Ed Anthony. Temperence Hill (1980), Demons Begone (1987) and Pine Bluff (1992), representing Anthony’s Loblolly (now Shortleaf) Stables, parlayed Rebel victories into Arkansas Derby triumphs. Cox can get a better read on the $1 million Grade 1 race April 10 at Oaklawn (100 Derby points to the winner) after Caddo River stretches his speed, or not, in the mile-andsixteenth Rebel.
To his credit, Caddo River is become known for the company he keeps. Smarty Jones runner-up Cowan finished a troubled second in the $1.5 million Saudi Derby overseas and Greatest Honour, who twice finished behind Caddo River in maiden races last fall in New York, has two graded victories this year at Gulfstream Park for Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey.
“It’s nice to see that horse has been kind of dominating the south Florida circuit,” Cox said. “He’s run twice and obviously he’s moved forward. I think we’ve moved forward as well. It gives us confidence, for sure.”
Breaking from the rail with Florent Geroux aboard, Caddo River may attempt another wire job in the Rebel, winning the Smarty Jones by 10 1/4 lengths with a front-running trip from outside post 7. Sired by Kentucky Derby runner-up Hard Spun, the homebred colt moved to his trainer’s New Orleans base Feb. 11, shortly before severe weather grounded Oaklawn for almost two weeks. Breezing four times at Fair Grounds, Caddo River returned to Hot Springs on Wednesday.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Cox said. “He’s doing great. We couldn’t ask him to be training any better. He hasn’t missed anything. He’s on a great schedule and training like the part.”
Concert Tour’s 2-for-2 credentials are similar to those of Nadal last year, following his maiden victory at Santa Anita with a Grade 2 triumph at seven furlongs. Baffert looks for a more rewarding performance than given Feb. 27 by stablemate Spielberg, who ran second in the Southwest after missing the break. This is the two-turn debut for Concert Tour, a Street Sense colt from a Tapit mare. He gets Joel Rosario up and breaks from post 6.
“Concert Tour, I just think that he’s done everything right and he’s worked well coming into the race,” Baffert said. “Spielberg had a nice outside post and it ended up a horrendous break. No fault of anybody’s, but he just moved at the last minute. They still have to get away from there and break cleanly and get into the race. You just want to get them into a nice rhythm where they can breathe easily and not get stopped.”
Any kind of pace meltdown would benefit late-running Keepmeinmind, third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland before winning the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs. Because of weather, Diodoro delayed the Laoban colt’s 3-year-old debut until the Rebel, passing on a 50-point Derby prep in New Orleans after drawing an outside post. Here getting post 6, Keepmeinmind wears the silks of new minority owner Spendthrift Farm, which raced 2020 Horse of the Year Authentic.
“I like the draw, the post, I like everything about it, to be honest,” Diodoro said. “No complaints. My famous saying is the race is run on dirt, not paper, but on paper it looks like more than what I predicted to be in there. I like what the race looks like.”
Adding more stature is Get Her Number, last seen winning the Grade 1 American Pharoah at Santa Anita in September. Hall of Famer Javier Castellano rides from post four (odds 8-1) for trainer Peter Miller.
Among the others, Super Stock placed third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland. Essential Quality, trained by Cox, won both that race and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, earning championship honors in yearend Eclipse Award voting.
Cox won his first Eclipse as the nation’s leading trainer, outpolling past recipients Asmussen and Baffert. Oaklawn, as you can see, isn’t the only track where mega-trainers do good.