Derby points on the line
Smarty Jones Stakes race helps kick off year’s Oaklawn season.
HOT SPRINGS — For the second consecutive year, Oaklawn begins its season with implications on the road to the Kentucky Derby.
Oaklawn opens its 116-year old racetrack today with a nine-race card featuring the $150,000 1-mile Smarty Jones Stakes for 3-year-old horses, the first of four races at the track this season to offer qualifying points for the Grade I Kentucky Derby.
“We’re fortunate to be able to offer Derby points,” Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort President Louis Cella said. “That’s meaningful this early in the season. Like everyone else, you want to be able to see if you have the real thing, and you’re not going to know unless you race. It’s a great kickoff to the season, but it’s also a great kickoff to the 3-year-old season at Oaklawn.”
The Smarty Jones, named for the winner of Oaklawn’s 2004 Southwest and Rebel stakes, the Arkansas Derby, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, is set with a field of nine and a post time scheduled for 3:52 p.m.
The nine horses entered include four trained by Steve Asmussen, a member of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Oaklawn’s training champion the past three seasons and nine of the past 13. He trains Silver Prospector, the 5-2 morning line favorite ridden by Ricardo Santana Jr. and owned by Ed and Susie Orr.
Among the deep list of contenders is Bill Parcells’ Three Technique, trained by Jeremiah Englehart, in his 18th season as a trainer but his first at Oaklawn. Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride Three Technique.
Parcells is the retired NFL coach who led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories and was named to
the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
“This is a nice group of horses,” Englehart said. “You know, Steve’s got four in there, so you’re never excited to see that when you see the overnight, but the nice thing is, you know you’re going to have to run. They’re not going to hand you anything. We have to prove that we’re good enough to compete with those horses and that field.”
Silver Prospector joins Shoplifted as horses trained by Asmussen in the Smarty Jones field who enter with Derby qualifying points in hand. Silver Prospector, by Declaration of War and a maternal grandson of Tapit, won the Grade II $300,000 1 1/16mile Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs on Nov. 1. His stablemate, Cheyenne Stables’ and Grandview Equine and LNJ Foxwoods’ Shoplifted won the $400,000 1-mile Springboard Mile Stakes at Remington Park in Oklahoma City on Dec. 15. Each earned 10 points with their wins.
The Smarty Jones winner also earns 10 qualifying points. The race distributes 4 points to the second-place horse, 2 for third, and 1 for the fourthplace finisher.
Three Technique, by Mr. Speaker, at 9-2 the Smarty Jones’ morning line third choice, has yet to race against stakes company or beyond 7 furlongs but went through three-quarters of a mile in 1:10.40 in his 7-furlong maiden victory at Saratoga Racetrack in Saratoga, N.Y., on Aug. 31, to demonstrate talent adequate for a spot on the early road to the Kentucky Derby.
“From early on, he was a horse that did everything right,” Englehart said. “He was very professional in the morning. In his races, he kind of developed the right way. He’s at a point now that he needs to prove that he’s a next-level horse.”
Asmussen also trains Smarty Jones entrant Gold Street, a son of Street Boss and maternal grandson of Fusaichi Pegasus, who won the $75,000 6-furlong Sugar Bowl Stakes at Fair Grounds in New Orleans on Dec. 21 in his last start.
Jockey Martin Garcia, in his first full season at Oaklawn, will ride Gold Street for the first time in the Smarty Jones. He said he didn’t know Dwight Pruett’s Gray Attempt followed up his victory in the 2018 Sugar Bowl to win by a neck over Long Range Toddy, then trained by Asmussen, in the Smarty Jones last season.
“That means [Gold Attempt] must be a good horse,” said Garcia, who rode Lookin At Lucky to victory in the 2010 Grade I Preakness Stakes. “Plus, I’m riding for a really good trainer who is always successful. It will be a tough race, but I’m pretty lucky to be in a race like that. My possibilities to win are big.”
Garcia said he looked forward to his seat in the Smarty Jones, but he said the community around him seemed thrilled first by the thought of opening day at its racetrack.
“With all these good horses and all these good things, everyone is excited,” he said. “It’s a small town. Everyone here knows about the horse racing. Wherever you go to buy stuff, it could be food or clothes or anything, everyone’s talking about the races. I think that’s good for us.”
“We’re very, very excited,” Cella said. “We’re so honored that our horsemen are ready to go, to jump in the game.”