Arkansas owner sends out two Oaks hopefuls

Arkansas horseman Willis Horton knows about getting to the Kentucky Oaks, winning the 2006 classic with Lemons Forever one day before the ill-fated Barbaro romped in the Kentucky Derby.

A retired homebuilder from Marshall, Horton wants to get back to the Oaks and has two contenders for the April 30 race at Churchill Downs. Both are trained by Dallas Stewart, who saddled Lemons Forever and whose former boss, Wayne Lukas, won Eclipse Awards in the past decade with Horton runners Will Take Charge and Take Charge Brandi.

Trying to join Hot Springs’ Staton Flurry as a back-to-back Arkansas owner of an Oaks winner, Horton has a pleasant dilemma Saturday. His prospects for Oaks 147 run a little more than an hour apart at tracks separated by a time zone.

Will’s Secret, a two-time Hot Springs stakes winner and a homebred sired by Will Take Charge, is one of six in the Grade 1 $400,000 Central Bank Ashland at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. Post time for the Ashland is 4:30 CT, some 74 minutes before the Grade 3 $600,000 Fantasy, Oaklawn’s top race for 3-year-old fillies. In that seven-horse field, Horton sends out recent Oaklawn maiden winner Take Charge Lorin, a homebred by supersire Tapit.

Horton can watch the Ashland with some security in that, with 60 qualifying points, Will’s Secret has an Oaks spot wrapped up barring misfortune. Take Charge Lorin, making her stakes debut, needs a high finish in the Fantasy, which offers 100 points to the winner, 40 for second and 20 for third, to make the Oaks field.

“We couldn’t pass up the Ashland, which is Grade 1,” Horton said in a telephone interview Thursday. “This way, we get to run the other filly in the Fantasy. We’d like to take two to the Oaks.”

Given his druthers, Horton would like to have Jon Court ride both fillies .The 60-year-old Court, a particular favorite of the owner, keeps the mount on Will’s Secret, who has an ascending Beyer Speed Figure in each race but faces a class test in the Ashland.

David Cabrera inherits the mount on Take Charge Lorin, who popped a 74 BSF in her one-length Oaklawn maiden victory Feb. 25, her first start over the track. Trumpet Lilly, second in that race, came back to win a one-mile maiden race March 14 for Cippy Contreras.

Asked if he felt confident before what may be the final Oaks prep for both fillies, Horton said, “Yes, definitely.” Correcting one logistics problem, Horton plans to watch Take Charge Lorin in person at Oaklawn while viewing Will’s Secret on closed-circuit TV.

“He’s probably having the best meet by an Arkansas owner since John Ed Anthony several years back,” said Oaklawn media relations director Jennifer Hoyt. Along with Ron Winchell, Horton has an interest in two-time meet stakes winner Silver State, 4-year-old winner of the Fifth Season and Essex Handicap for trainer Steve Asmussen. (Anthony, a Hot Springs lumberman, has two stakes wins at the meet and bids for his fourth Arkansas Derby victory with the Hard Spun homebred Caddo River.)

Will’s Secret emerged as the top Arkansas-based 3-year-old filly with breakout wins in the one-mile Martha Washington Jan. 30 and the mile-and—sixteenth Grade

3 Honeybee March 6. It is not lost on Horton that 2020 Honeybee winner Shedaresthedevil won the Oaks in an upset of Fantasy and future Preakness winner Swiss Survivor. (The first Grade 1 winner for Flurry, who parks cars across from the track, Shedaresthedevil opened her

4-year-old season with a Grade 2 victory in Oaklawn’s Azeri March 13.)

Will’s Secret made a four-wide move to contention in the Martha Washington, getting an 81 BSF, and was much closer to the pace when posting an 82 in the Honeybee. Her tactical speed may be called on in a short but contentious Ashland field. Standouts include Simply Ravishing, a Grade 1 winner at Keeneland last fall for Ken MePeek, and the unbeaten Mala

thaat, a Grade 2 winner by Curlin whom Todd Pletcher trains for Shadwell Stable, both coming off the bench for 3-year-old debuts 22 days before the Oaks.

(Whereas Simply Ravishing, by the young sire Laoban, sold for $25,000 a month earlier, Malathaat brought $1,050,000 in September

2019 at Keeneland, the bay filly breaking her maiden at Belmont Park and winning two New York stakes at Aqueduct. New York-bred Simply Ravishing won a stake second out at Saratoga and took the Alcibiades by 6 1/2 lengths before running fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Keeneland and the Golden Rod at Churchill Downs.)

With no graded-stakes winners, the Fantasy is short on proven back class but perhaps long on upside potential. Cox sends out Coach, a minor Churchill Downs stakes winner who has disappointed twice against Will’s Secret in Oaklawn starts. Fernando De La Cruz, who rode the filly in two victories at Indiana Grand, regains the mount.

Cox also entered Sun Path, third in the Honeybee, 1 1/2 lengths behind Will’s Secret, while Coach was a well-beaten fifth. Coach was squeezed early