The rematch is on. Untapable, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2014, will be out for revenge Friday at Oaklawn Park when she takes another swing at Gold Medal Dancer in the Grade 1, $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap.
The $100,000 Bachelor Stakes on the Apple Blossom card Friday at Oaklawn Park is a puzzle begging to be solved. I Spent It is the most accomplished member of the field as the winner of last year’s Grade 2 Saratoga Special, but he will be cutting back to one turn for the six-furlong Bachelor.
The well-seasoned Far Right has successfully stretched out to win both of his starts this year, first taking the Smarty Jones Stakes at a mile and then winning the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes at 1 1/16 miles. The ridgling will go 1 1/8 miles for the first time in Saturday’s Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park. Far Right has established himself as a prominent Kentucky Derby contender by outrunning a pedigree that suggests added distance will be a stiff challenge.
Firing Line has become the horse Derby watchers are trying hard not to forget. Since early February he has remained above the serious fray, going forth only once since then to parade home by 14 1/4 lengths in the Sunland Park Derby. Prior to that, in consecutive races against Dortmund, Firing Line was beaten a head in the Los Alamitos Futurity and a head in the Robert Lewis, which by any measure is not that much.
Before he heads to Kentucky, Frosted is going to his old south Florida home.Frosted, the winner of last Saturday’s Grade 1, $985,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, was to be flown to south Florida on Wednesday and will prepare for the May 2 Kentucky Derby at the Palm Meadows training center, where he has been based the last four months.
The champion American Pharoah arrived Wednesday at Oaklawn Park and not long afterward drew post 6 in a field of eight for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby. He was installed the 1-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s race.
Wavell Avenue finished fourth at 1-5 last out, ending a winning streak at three. Trainer Chad Brown thinks there is reason to believe Wavell Avenue could start a new streak Friday when she heads a six-horse field in a $75,000 second-level allowance.
Former Thoroughbred jockey Ricardo Alfredo Valdes, one of three men indicted in May 2009 in separate criminal cases involving an array of alleged illegal activity including attempting to influence the outcome of horse races in Michigan and Florida, was sentenced Tuesday to one year plus one day in federal prison and an additional three years of supervised release. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith in Detroit.
One side effect of the Blue Grass Stakes being moved one week further out from the Kentucky Derby was supposed to be a positive move for the Lexington Stakes.
The Kentucky Derby preps are to the Kentucky Derby as the National Hockey League regular season is to the NHL playoffs. It is a months-long grind that began last fall, it ends on Saturday, and it involves quite a bit of scoreboard watching to see who’s in and who’s out.
