A-list names win Oaklawn graded events
Staging two graded stakes races on one card, like Oaklawn did Saturday with two divisions of older campaigners, makes perfect sense. No matter how many starter allowances precede the main events.
The Apple Blossom and Count Fleet Sprint handicaps, totaling $1.75 million in purses, stood out on this April afternoon, even if the outcomes were as predictable as Shohei Ohtani toward a fastball.
Anne Rice or Stephen King was not called in to doctor the scripts. The state newspaper played both stories on an inside sports page while the Razorback Red-White football game, Arkansas vs. Arkansas, went out front with a column by Wally Hall touching on a recent ruling involving two-time Oaklawn training champion Robertino Diodoro. No complaints here.
Too many other things were going on, like Arkansas’ No. 1 baseball team losing its first weekend series and Scottie Scheffler honing in at Augusta National Golf Club on a second Masters title.
Such late-season Oaklawn races as the Dig a Diamond and Valley of the Vapors are sure to fit in nicely on a stakes schedule expanded for a December-to-May season. Check back in June and I may be able to tell them apart, complete with race conditions and past winners.
Unless Adare Manor or Skelly achieves greater glory outside Oaklawn, Saturday’s big Oaklawn winners, both A-listers, are doomed to slip from memory. The only way either heavy favorite might have done differently was to lose. Thankfully, respective Hall of Fame trainers Bob Baffert and Steve Asmussen saw their stars operate at peak form.
Baffert won his second Apple Blossom two weeks after Muth notched the trainer’s fifth Arkansas Derby. The silver-haired trainer — can he be 71? — increasingly finds Hot Springs an oasis when other racing venues, notably Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby), are off limits.
His horses invariably ship from California for their first out-of-town engagement. Names of the riders change but they’re people Baffert can trust to obey orders. Juan Hernandez (rider of Muth and Adare Manor) is the newly crowned champion at Santa Anita.
Most of the time, instructions are simple. Typical is to go to the lead and improve your position. Unless walking out of the gate, a Baffert trainee is unlikely to cite a troubled trip as an excuse for losing. His fleet of sleek runners does not come all this way to stalk the pace.
Baffert became miffed with Oaklawn over perceived favoritism for trainer Ron McAnally, whose clients included the late track president Charles J. Cella. After Lookin At Lucky, a future Preakness winner, took the 2010 Rebel Stakes, Baffert was asked if he had become ticked
off, although other wording was used. Surrounded by Mike Pegram and other of his celebrity owners, Baffert said simply, “I just outgrew this place.”
A heart condition has confined Baffert to California for all but Triple Crown events (the ones for which he’s eligible) and the Breeders’ Cup. Assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes, he of dark glasses, is good with the press and suits Baffert’s other needs at the race site. A rare scary moment for Barnes came when Authentic spooked in the Churchill Downs winner’s circle after the 2020 Kentucky Derby.
Asmussen has yet to visit the Louisville enclosure moments after the Derby. We shall see if his luck changes May 4 with Track Phantom in Derby 150, that one’s owners including Hot Springs product Jerry Caroom.
As it is, Asmussen is pulling into the station in his 13th Oaklawn championship season with a chance also to be leading owner in races won (Staton Flurry, of Hot Springs, leads 19-18 with three weeks left). Keith Asmussen is tightening the grip on second place in the jockey standings in his second local season. And, Steve’s youngest son, Erik, scored his first local riding victory Sunday.
These are the best of times for the man from Laredo, Texas, who, at 68, often wears his gray hair fashionably long. Asmussen is not the easiest person to interview, yet worth the effort. Racing is unlikely to see another like him.