C Z Rocket ships in to kickstart 9-year-old season
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – C Z Rocket might be based in Southern California, but when he launches his season Friday at Oaklawn Park it will feel like a homecoming.
C Z Rocket goes in the eighth race, a six-furlong allowance for 4-year-olds and up worth $108,000. It will be his first start since a runner-up finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in November at Keeneland. C Z Rocket is returning to an Oaklawn surface over which he won both the Grade 3, $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap and $200,000 Hot Springs Stakes in 2021. The division has long been a popular one at Oaklawn.
“He likes that track and has got a pretty good following, too,” said Peter Miller, who trains 9-year-old C Z Rocket.
A field of seven is set for the no-conditions allowance. Morello, who won last year’s Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct, is making his Oaklawn debut, while wire-to-wire threat Edge to Edge enters off a local allowance win for which he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 102. Rotknee is a multiple stakes winner against New York-breds who invades from Belmont Park, and two-time stakes winner Necker Island is making his first start since October.
But for all their accomplishments, C Z Rocket is a standout on class as an earner of more than $1.9 million over 35 career starts. He’s been working for his return at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in Bonsall, Calif.
“He’s doing really good,” Miller said. “This is a good starting off point for him. It’s a tough race. It’s a real tough race. But we feel like he’s ready to run well.”
Miller said C Z Rocket has come to hand quickly.
“He was only off about a month after the Breeders’ Cup,” he said, “so he did not lose all of his conditioning.”
C Z Rocket took the lead in the later stages of the BC Sprint before finishing a length and a quarter behind eventual Eclipse Award champion Elite Power.
“It was a great effort,” Miller said. “I thought he was going to win it for a second there.”
It was the second time C Z Rocket has finished second in the BC Sprint. He also was second in 2020.
“It shows how durable he is, how much heart and desire he has,” Miller said. “He’s just such an awesome, cool dude. He just makes me smile every morning I see him.”
Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount from post 4 for Tom Kagele, Altamira Racing Stable, Madaket Stables, and Gary Barber.
Following the race, a campaign will start to be mapped out for C Z Rocket.
“Certainly Dubai is on the radar, and also races like the Count Fleet back at Oaklawn,” Miller said. “That would be another race we would definitely think about. But right now, we’re just thinking about Friday.”
It is, after all, homecoming.
◗ Grade 1 winner And Tell Me Nolies remains possible for the Grade 3, $300,000 Honeybee on Feb. 25 at Oaklawn, said Miller. It is a points race for the Kentucky Oaks.
◗ Wet Paint, winner of the Martha Washington at Oaklawn, is scheduled to make her next start in the Honeybee, said trainer Brad Cox.
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