Arkies stand out on Oaklawn’s first Wednesday card
Oaklawn’s first Wednesday card this year wasn’t billed as “Arkansas’ Day at the Races,” but it could have been.
Four state-bred horses were among the nine winners before an intimate gathering estimated at 750. In so doing, Hot Springs horsemen John Ed Anthony and Jerry Caroom tied as leading owner with their eighth victories of the season.
Anthony’s Shortleaf Stable checked in with 4-year-old Turnstone ($13.40) in the first race. A homebred daughter of $1,000 sire Double Irish, she repeated her Jan. 31, 2020, maiden victory over the track when trained by since-retired Will Van Meter. Making her third start of the meeting under Ricardo Santana Jr.,Turnstone went the fast-rated 1 1/16 miles in 1:45.33 and prevailed by one length over 11-10 favorite Black Kat Taps
As an Arkansas-bred horse in open company, she ran for $33,500 ($4,000 over the original purse) and collected $21,700. John Alexander Ortiz trains Turnstone while Brad Cox conditions other of Anthony’s horses, including meet stakes winners and fellow homebreds Caddo River and The Mary Rose. With a victory by Caddo River in the $1 million Grade 1 race April 10, Caddo River can join Joe Cantey, Phil
Hauswald and Tom Bohannan as trainers to saddle Arkansas Derby winners for Anthony.
Other Arkansas-bred winners on the card were Mark David Hixson’s My Dominator ($8) in the second race, William Prichard’s Five Rivers ($34.20) in the fourth and Ten Strike Racing’s Lil Tater
($11.20) in the fifth.
Caroom pulled even in the standings with sixth-race winner Sea to Success
($4.20), unbeaten in two starts for Southern California-based trainer John Sadler. With Cristian Torres keeping the mount, the 3-year-old Anchor Down gelding repeated his March 14 debut victory, going six furlongs in 1:11.50 and paying $4.20 as the race favorite.
Carl Deville trains Caroom’s stable star, Tempt Fate, the meet’s first threetime winner following Saturday’s $150,000 Nodouble Breeders. Tempt Fate, like the owner’s former stakes winner Hoonani Road, is bred in Arkansas and, says Deville, may go long in a state-bred stake later in the meeting.
“When I became a horse owner, I didn’t know what Arkansas-bred meant,” Caroom said after a 2019 victory by Hoonani Road, who raced here for Wayne Catalano and now does business in Robertino Diodoro’s barn.
Caroom grew up watching the races at Oaklawn and considers the late Jack Van Berg an early influence upon his career an owner. He has a meet victory for Tom Amoss with 4-year-old Sharecropper, whom Caroom claimed for $30,000 off Mike Maker after the horse’s opening-day win. Caroom’s brother, Scotty, won the second race on the Jan. 22 card with Beauty Day, a 4-year-old filly trained by Federico Villafranco.
My Dominator scored at first asking for Karl Broberg, the 3-year-old gelding getting a stalking trip from David Cabrera
and winning by a neck after six furlongs in 1:12.71. Not yet 3 by the calendar (April 25 foal), My Dominator is the latest winner for Dominus, a son of Smart Strike who stands for $5,000 at Spendthrift Farms in Kentucky. The yearling colt sold for $10,000 with his dam, Kulik Cat (Giant’s Causeway), sent to several fashionable sires.
Lil Tater, the first meet winner for trainer Shea Stuart, drew off by 6 1/2 lengths under .Walter De La Cruz over odds-on favorite Lucky Every Day, Sired by $1,500 stallion Hamazing Destiny (same as Caroom’s Tempt Fate), Lil Tater made his record 2 for 19, his previous win coming on the same track by 10 1/2 lengths March 12, 2020.
“Hopefully, that will open the floodgates just a little,” said Stuart, an Edmond, Okla., native who also trains in his native state and New Jersey. A part-time Hot Springs resident, Stuart feels happy to get on the scoreboard against such as Steve Asmussen, Cox and Diodoro, whose horses win about one third of the races. “I’m happy whenever I can just compete with them,” said Stuart, whose horse beat a heavily favored first-off-the-claim runner for Diodoro.
Ten Strike Racing represents Memphis horseman Marshall Gramm, whose stable includes Razorback Handicap winner and Cox trainee Warrior’s Charge.
Indiana-based horseman Michael Lauer visited the Larry Snyder Winner’s Circle for the first time at the meeting with Strong Tide ($7). The featured eighth race was carded at the three-turn distance of 1 9/16 miles, starting midway on the backstretch, as a tune-up for the meet-ending Trail’s End purse at a mile and three quarters.
Getting the distance in 2:38.98 with Geroux aboard, Strong Tide has a pedigree (champion English Channel) that suggests he might be better on grass. Indeed, he has three victories each on dirt and turf but, in Lauer, he has a trainer who does especially good work with marathoners.
Per Sentinel-Record handicapper Jeff Krupsaw, Lauer won at Oaklawn with Tales of War at 1 3/16 miles in 2019 and ran second with the same horse at 1 1/2 miles that season. Lauer and wife Penny, the listed owner, bred Strong Tide in Indiana and gave the bay colt a one-mile race March 19 at Oaklawn when fourth to Caribbean. This was Strong Tide’s first local win in three tries.
Claytnthelionheart (Philip Bauer) and Jumper (Chris Hartman) completed the trifecta. Others in the race included 2019 Oaklawn Invitational winner Laughing Fox and 2020 Rebel Stakes first-division runner-up Excession, both trained by Asmussen.
This was the first of two Wednesday cards Oaklawn added after winter weather closed the track for eight racing days in February. Another Wednesday card, April 28, launches the final week of racing at the track. The track is closed Easter Sunday, then resumes its regular Thursday-Sunday schedule next week.