After a one-race experiment, blinkers back on Remembering Rita

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – What’s old is new again.

That will be the case for Remembering Rita on Friday, when he adds blinkers again for the featured eighth race at Oaklawn Park. He leads a six-horse field for the optional $100,000 claiming route, which will be scratched down to five as $1.5 million earner Shotgun Kowboy will not run, according to trainer C.R. Trout. Shotgun Kowboy came out of his last work with a cough and will await another spot, Trout said Tuesday.

Remembering Rita, a Grade 3 winner who has earned $443,057, last raced Jan. 25. He set the pace in a division of the $100,000 Fifth Season at Oaklawn and finished fifth to winner Guest Suite.

“We took the blinkers off last time, did a little experiment with him,” trainer Doug Anderson said Tuesday. “It didn’t seem that it really worked that well, so we kind of put the blinkers back on him, and we’ll see if that wakes him back up again.”

Anderson said Remembering Rita had worked without his usual blinkers leading up to the Fifth Season.

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“We were training without them and it seemed like he was training good,” he said.

In the race, however, Anderson said it was a different story.

“He kind of acted like he was lost out there without them,” he said.

Remembering Rita, who regularly wore blinkers dating back to his maiden win, will also stretch out from a mile to 1 1/8 miles. He captured the Grade 3 Cornhusker at 1 1/8 miles in 2018 at Prairie Meadows.

Joe Talamo has the mount from the rail Friday, for owner Jeral Adams.

Remembering Rita, a 6-year-old horse by Spring At Last, was a $50,000 claim out of his third career start in November 2016.

“He sure has been pretty consistent,” Anderson said. “He tries hard every time and he’s a pretty cool horse to be around. For a stud horse, he’s pretty laid back. He likes to play around in the barn a little bit. Never mean or anything. Always in fun. He’s a joy to be around.”

The chief threats could be the late-runners Hawaakom and M G Warrior.

Hawaakom, who won the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap in 2018 at Oaklawn, launches his season Friday. He enters off a fifth-place finish in an optional $62,500 claiming race Nov. 29 at Churchill Downs. Richard Eramia has the mount for trainer Wes Hawley.

M G Warrior was fourth last out in the Fifth Season division won by Pioneer Spirit. Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount for trainer Brad Cox.