Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Gray Attempt shows his heart
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Heart. It’s one of those intangibles that sets a racehorse apart. It never reveals itself on a yearling catalog page, but rather shows up on the track, in the heat of battle.
Dwight Pruett is genuinely delighted to have a horse with heart in Gray Attempt. He purchased the colt as a yearling for $50,000 in July 2017 at a FasigTipton auction in Kentucky and on Monday the horse will be shooting for his third straight stakes win when he starts as one of the top choices in the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
“You can’t train that heart, the want-to,” Pruett said. “That’s what I like about this horse – his desire.”
Gray Attempt has the necessary physical attributes, including athleticism, to back up that desire, and Pruett said it was trainer Jinks Fires who selected the horse at auction. Gray Attempt’s sire, Grade 1 winner Graydar, was 5 for 6 in his career, while Gray Attempt’s dam, Attempt to Name, is from the female family of Grade 2 winners Tower of Texas and Street Sounds.
Fires has sent out Gray Attempt to win 3 of 4 starts, with his latest a neck victory in the $150,000 Smarty Jones on Jan. 25 at Oaklawn. The mile race was Gray Attempt’s first start around two turns, and he set the pace and prevailed while being surrounded late by Long Range Toddy and Boldor, both of whom are being pointed to the Southwest.
“We had the outside post and wanted to be ahead going into the first turn,” Pruett said. “By the first turn, he was up by two lengths, and just kind of kept on. He had horses coming up on him on both sides in the stretch and he fought back. The horse’s desire to win just came on.”
Gray Attempt will move to 1 1/16 miles for the Southwest.
“Jinks doesn’t think the longer distance will hurt us,” Pruett said.
In preparation, Gray Attempt bounded home in a Sunday work for the Southwest. He covered five furlongs in 1:00.20 on a muddy, sealed track. Gray Attempt worked by himself, and Oaklawn clockers caught his final quarter in 23.60 seconds and galloping out six furlongs in 1:12.60.
“I just wanted a maintenance work, just keep him where we got him, and he’s where we want him to be,” Fires said.
Shaun Bridgmohan, who has ridden the horse in all four of his starts, has the mount in the Southwest.
Pruett, a 65-year-old who is retired from his consumerlending business, bought his first racehorse in 2013.
“I’ve been around Oaklawn for 30, 40 years, then six years ago claimed a horse just to have one,” he said. “I kind of got into it, and before I knew it I had two dozen!”
Pruett has 12 horses in training, and often buys at yearling and 2-year-old auctions. One of his local success stories was Discreetness, who won the Smarty Jones in 2016.
Gray Attempt will try to advance the cause for Pruett by taking down the next 3-yearold race in the Oaklawn series Monday.
◗ The Thursday card features an allowance for Arkansasbreds that drew a number of stakes winners, including Weast Hill, Glacken’s Ghost, Racer, and Hoonani Road. It is expected to produce starters for the $100,000 Nodouble here March 23.
Heavy Roller likely for Essex
Heavy Roller has put himself in the running for a stakes start after he defeated three Grade 3 winners in the Sunday allowance feature at Oaklawn. Heavy Roller closed from next to last in the slop and endless rain and won off by seven lengths at 12-1.
Heavy Roller earned a careerhigh Beyer Speed Figure of 99 in the mile race.
“He’s a horse that’s been steadily improving, but I’m not going to lie, when I looked at the race, we were pretty intimidated by the competition,” trainer Joe Sharp said Monday. “Having said that, we were confident in our horse, how he’d been training. I had worked him myself over that track and he handled it very well. Obviously, nothing could prepare us for the surface we ran on yesterday.
“We’re pretty excited about what the next step might be.”
Sharp said Heavy Roller is now a candidate for the $300,000 Essex Handicap on March 16 at Oaklawn. Owned by Carl Moore, Heavy Roller was making his first start in Hot Springs on Sunday.
“Seeing that he does like Oaklawn, that’s one thing to our advantage,” Sharp said. “And it’s good, timing-wise.”
Heavy Roller won his second straight race following an optional $40,000 claiming route Jan. 12 at Fair Grounds, for which he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 90.
Sharp, who has a 20-horse division at Oaklawn, said it’s the first time he’s been stabled at the track in three or four years. In that time his stable has grown. Sharp said the added division enables him to separate horses that have similar conditions and that the purse structure was another reason to set up shop at Oaklawn.
On Saturday, Sharp will run Lady T N T in the $100,000 Dixie Belle, a six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies.
Heartwood has options
Heartwood, who won the $100,000 King Cotton on Saturday at Oaklawn, is one of the senior members of trainer James Chapman’s stable – and he’s just turned 5.
“We’ve got 25 babies coming up,” Chapman said of the 2-year-olds in his stable.
Heartwood has been teaching them the ropes. He won his third stakes Saturday when fought for a half-length win in the King Cotton. Heartwood was always prominent, covered six furlongs in 1:09.99, and earned a Beyer Figure of 94.
“He seems like he’s getting better with age,” said Chapman, who also owns Heartwood with Stuart Tsujimoto.
Chapman said Monday that Heartwood is back home at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, Ky.
Chapman said Heartwood will either return to Oaklawn for the $150,000 Hot Springs or head to Aqueduct for the Grade 3, $200,000 Tom Fool Handicap. Both six-furlong races are on March 9.