Souixper Charger aces ABCS at Oaklawn
In the wake of a Kentucky Derby with lottery-like payoffs, racing regained a modicum of sanity late in the afternoon on the first Saturday in May.
It might be said that the sport returned to its ABCS.
And that though it be the sport of kings for many, what others treasure as the Great American Game offers a place for all at the table.
John Henry Prather Jr. of Hot Springs joined a short list of Black men to train an Oaklawn stakes winner when 6-year-old Souixper Charger pulled away in midstretch for a widening victory in the $200,000 Arkansas Breeders’ Championship, the track’s richest race for older state-bred horses.
The Portobello Road gelding capped a season that he won another race and crossed the finish line second in three others, disqualified from purse money one time. Luis Quinonez rode Souixper Charger, a second-out Oaklawn maiden winner for Al Cates in 2019 and in a Hot Springs allowance for Dan Peitz in 2020. The $120,000 winner’s purse elevated his career bankroll to $329,218 from 24 starts, six wins included.
This came about a half-hour after Rich Strike’s jaw-dropping victory at 81-1 in the 148th Kentucky Derby, one in which the winner, whose jockey, Sonny Leon, rode on Friday at Belterra Park in Ohio and whose only previous victory came in a one-turn mile at Derby host Churchill Downs, paid $163.60 and keyed a $1 superfecta (top four finishers) worth $320,000.
Citing trainers Terry Brennan and Rick Jackson as early influences, Prather quietly built a small but active local stable, in which family members worked around the barn.
The ABC marked Prather’s sixth victory in a 66-day meeting that began in December and ends today, one encompassing 31 stakes and in which another Hot Springs horseman, John Ed Anthony, set career and seasonal Oaklawn marks.
Souixper Charger covered a mile and one-sixteenth in 1:44.09, joining a group of four contending horses on the backstretch and briefly dueling with defending ABC winner Tempt Fate. In midstretch, he found a second wind and kicked clear, paying $14, $6 and $4. The victory was Souixper Charger’s first since Jan. 2 going 5 1/2 furlongs in the mud and followed a last-out second to Bandit Point by one length April 10 at the ABC distance.
He was disqualified from purse money after finishing 10th in Gar Hole’s Nodouble Breeders’ victory March 5 at six furlongs.
Bandit Point, in second, posted his 14th top-three finish in 33 Oaklawn races, four of them victories. Robert Cline owns and trains the 7-year-old, no worse than third in the Nodouble the last four years and running Saturday in his fourth ABC. Man in the Can, the 2020 Nodouble and ABC winner for trainer Ron Moquett, was third at 12-1 and Twisted Dixie fourth at 35-1.
Oaks recap: A Grade 1 winner for Wayne Lukas with experience against males, Secret Oath might bridge the gender gap again, her Hall of Fame trainer said Saturday after winning the 148th Kentucky Oaks.
“The Preakness is an option, but so is the Black-eyed Susan,” Lukas said discussing hos options for mid-may classic races for 3-year-olds at Pimlico in Baltimore. “The big difference is a million dollars and a Grade 1. Would be nice to get her a second Grade 1.”
Lukas, at 86, celebrated his fifth Oaks victory and first since 1990 on Friday at Churchill Downs in Louisville. A three-time winner at Oaklawn who finished third as the favorite in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby April 2, Secret Oath won for breeders Robert and Stacy Mitchell of Kentucky’s Briland Farm. The Oaks winner is a daughter of the late Arrogate produced by the couple’s stakes-winning mare Absinthe Minded, by Quiet American, herself a two-time stakes winner in Hot Springs.
“She bounced back very quickly last night and she’s very sharp here this morning,” Lukas said. ‘Looks very good. We’re tickled to see her come out of that tough race and to be bouncing around here this morning. She’s excellent.
“I’m going to let a few days go by and then I’ll get with Rob Mitchell. I’ll let him have an opinion.”
Lukas has six wins in the Preakness, scheduled May 21, most recently with Oaklawn-raced Oxbow in 2013. The trainer also won the middle jewel of the Triple Crown with Codex in 1980, Tabasco Cat in 1984, Arkansas Derby winner Tank’s Prospect in 1985, Timber Country n 1995 and Charismatic in 1999.
With Luis Saez aboard, Secret Oath made a five-wide move into contention on the second turn and pulled away for a two-length victory over favored Next with nine furlongs in 1:49.44. She paid $10.80 to win. Nest Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, a former Lukas aide, gave the Coach a big hug of congratulations.
“She ran a picture-perfect race, a beautiful trip,” Lukas said. ” It kind of went the way we had mapped it out. When Luis moved into position down the backstretch, I told Laurie (wife) that we were going to be OK.”