California, Arkansas on the docket
This week’s Road to the Kentucky Derby runs through San Francisco and Hot Springs, Ark., the last stops in the 19-race Kentucky Derby Prep season.
The Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday and the Grade 3 Southwest Derby at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs on Monday will close out the Derby prep races that award 10 points to the winner and 4-2-1 to the second-, third- and fourth-place finishers, respectively.
Starting with the Risen Star Stakes at the Fairgrounds in New Orleans on Feb. 25, points for the 16-race Derby Championship series will jump to 50, or in some cases 100, for the winners.
Trainer Doug O’Neill looks for his second consecutive victory in the El Camino Real Derby, which will be run on synthetic Tapeta surface at 11⁄ miles. Last year he won with Frank Conversation, and he’s one of the early favorites this year with Ann Arbor Eddie. If he runs well in the El Camino, he could possibly run next in the $2 million United Arab Emirates Derby in Dubai on March 25.
Ann Arbor Eddie, owned by Paul and Zillah Reddam, won the $100,000 King Glorious Stakes at 1 mile at Los Alamitos on Dec. 18 and the $245,000 California Cup Derby at 11⁄ miles at Santa Anita on Jan. 28. The last horse to sweep those two races was California Chrome, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and was named Horse of the Year for 2014.
Other possibilities for the El Camino Real Derby are More Power to Him and Colonel Samsen, who finished second and third, respectively in the California Derby at Golden Gate on Jan. 21.
No El Camino Real winner has won the Kentucky Derby.
Southwest Stakes:
Rowdy the Warrior is likely for the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes on Feb. 20, according to his trainer, Donnie K. Von Hemel. That would make the top four finishers in the Jan. 16 Smarty Jones Stakes likely to run in the Southwest Stakes, the last of the Kentucky Derby prep races.
Rowdy the Warrior finished third in the Smarty Jones. Other 3-yearolds expected to run in the 11⁄ mile Southwest include early favorite Uncontested, Petrov and Warrior’s Club, which finished 1-2-4, respectively, in the Smarty Jones. Other possibilities: Lookin At Lee, Chief Know It All, Silver Dust and Hence.
The last Southwest Stakes winner to win the Kentucky Derby was Smarty Jones in 2004.