Arkie champs: Blame J D, Hillary G
If the local track presented such awards each racing season, Aidan Green would be in line for trophies in her first Oaklawn meeting.
The 33-year-old trainer might be an odds-on favorite for Rookie of the Year if not Woman of the Year. The season in which she scored her first career training victory fleshed out Friday with Green’s first stakes triumph.
Favored Blame J D broke first, settled off the pace and came on when he pleased in the
48th running of the $150,000 Rainbow. His winning margin was 3 3/4 lengths over Mrs. Beans with show horse Rolling Fork almost seven lengths clear of the fourth-place finisher.
The victory was worth
$90,000 to local breeder James Matheney Jr., who paired the Speightstown mare Tipping Point with 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Blame and came up with a March 2018 Arkansas foal. The bay Blame J D has since been gelded.
Blame J D skipped six furlongs in 1:09.73 over a wet-fast surface with Ramon Vazquez aboard. Vazquez also had the mount when, in his second start, Blame J D beat Arkansas-bred maidens by 2 1/2 lengths March 7. Fourth in a March 28 statebred race won by two-time meet winner Heritage Park, Blame J D went off 6-5 in the seven-horse Rainbow and paid $4.40, $2.80 and $2.40.
“I didn’t really tell Ramon anything,” Green said. “I said, ‘However it plays out, I’m confident in you and him.’ I think he rode him great. He showed he can do it all.
“It was pretty cool to watch him be that impressive. We’ve had high hopes for him since we broke him as a baby. It was really cool to see.”
Green posed in the Larry Snyder Winner’s Circle with two of her children (a third child was securing an umbrella on the rainy afternoon) after her eighth victory and 18th topthree finish in 27 meet starters.
“I love it. It’s so much fun,” Green said. “Everybody coming up to me and hugging me and my children. I really love the way it’s going.”
Blame J D, breaking sharply, settled into third position behind fellow meet winners Dusty Hill and Navy Seal. Vazquez moved confidently from outside at the head of the stretch while jockeys alongside were going to the whip. Blame J D quickly set down and drew off while Mrs. Beans and last-out meet winner Rolling Fork closed ground.
Green’s Feb. 11 victory with Kristo, her first career triumph, came with her 21st recognized starter. Her husband, Ike, is a former trainer who now assists his wife and Robertino Diodoro, Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 2020.
Also an aspiring photographer, Green said she met her future husband in 2010 when he was training at Sunland Park in suburban El Paso (transferring from Texas Tech, she lettered in volleyball four years at Texas-El Paso). They married in 2013 and have children 5, 4 and 6 months. She has 11 horses in her stable.
RAINBOW MISS
Once unwanted, the 3-yearold filly Hillary G got a home and a name in short order. Throw in the black type from her first stakes victory Friday and the future looks bright.
Raised on Bill McDowell
Farm’s in Sparkman, the champion Arkansas-bred filly of the
2018 foal class started her career at Sam Houston Race Park in Texas. That’s the home base for horseman Austin Gustafson, who co-owns the filly with Linda and Michael Mazoch.
Tommy Vance received program credit for Hillary G’s 2
3/4-length victory, her second of the meet, in Friday’s $150,000 Rainbow Miss. It was the first career stakes victory for the son of David Vance, whose 50 wins in the 50-day Oaklawn season of
1974 stood for years as the track record.
“Austin does the training and just lets me take care of her while she’s here,” Vance said.
Giving David Cabrera his third winner on the card, Hillary G collared 6-5 favorite and debut winner Heated Argument in midstretch. Heated Argument held on for second by a half-length over Kaboom Baby, who broke from outside in the
11-horse field.
Hillary G went six furlongs in 1:11.22 over a surface rated wet-fast and paid $12.60, $6 and $4, reprising her March 21 Oaklawn victory of 2 1/2 lengths.
“She ran the same race she did last time,” Vance said. Gustafson, he said, “did a great job sending her to me. I got her four days ago is all, but she did everything right. She’s a little bit of a head case. We had to take her straight to the gate, pretty much, because she’s a little wild. She ran like I thought she would.”
Said Cabrera, “The last time, she just kind of ran and she didn’t relax all that much and she still won. Today, she came back to me pretty easily and I think that was the whole thing.”
About Cabrera, second in the standings to Ricardo Santana Jr. (57-45) after back-to-back three-baggers, Vance said, “That kid’s really riding well. He won another race for me Sunday.”
Hillary G’s back story requires a box of Kleenex. Start with past Oaklawn training champion Chris Hartman, who obtained the orphaned filly from McDowell. Maybe a week after the filly was born, Hartman sent her to Gustafson’s father, Ricky, a retired trainer and former exercise rider for the late Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg.
“I called Austin and said there’s this gorgeous little orphaned filly and I don’t have anywhere to take her and feed her,” Hartman said. “Austin said, “I’ll take her.’ I loaned him my horse trailer and truck and he picked her up and drove her to Oklahoma.”
Hillary G derives her name from Hartman’s wife and assistant, whose maiden name is Gulihur. Vance says his connection to Gustafson is through his sister, Trisha, and her husband, Kelly Duncan, who have horses with the trainer.
Sired by multiple graded stakes winner Even the Score, Hillary G will return to Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, where she has been with Gustafson since her maiden victory.