Durante could have fitness edge in Fifth Season

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Durante has several variables in his favor heading into the $150,000 Fifth Season on Saturday at Oaklawn Park, but the most important might be his recent works in New York.

Durante was able to maintain a regular workout pattern at his base of Belmont Park while his local rivals were snowed in by a winter storm system that arrived Jan. 14. Oaklawn lost four days of racing, and the track opened for training for the first time since then on Wednesday.

“I do feel that I have a very big advantage,” said David Jacobson, who owns and trains Durante.

The Fifth Season was originally carded for Jan. 20, but was redrawn after that card was canceled. Durante is a new face, supplemented to Saturday’s one-mile stakes that ends at the sixteenth pole. The Fifth Season goes with a field of eight older horses, and the group includes Grade 2 winner Silver Prospector, Grade 3 winner Promise Keeper, and three-time stakes winner and supplement Logical Myth.

Durante, a Grade 3 winner, last worked Tuesday. He breezed a half-mile in 50.40 seconds over the training track at Belmont. Durante was scheduled to be flown to Arkansas on Thursday – dodging not only last week’s snowstorm but also the flooding rains that hit Monday and Tuesday.

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“I do feel for the horsemen,” Jacobson said from New York on Wednesday. “I don’t know if I was there if I would even be able to run this quick after not training for 10 days. So, I give them a lot of credit to be able to even run, because like I said, I’ve never been in a situation with that kind of challenge. A day or two for a snowstorm, I’m used to it in New York. But something like that is really tough on the horsemen.”

Durante owns the field’s co-highest last-race Beyer Speed Figure, a 90 for his third-place finish in the Gravesend over six furlongs Dec. 30 at Aqueduct. He’s won five of his last eight starts, coinciding with his cutback from two turns to one in June. Durante’s biggest win during his recent run of sprints came in the Grade 3 Bold Ruler in October at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet.

Ramon Vazquez has the mount on Durante from post 6.

“It seems like the perfect spot for him – just a question mark stretching him out,” Jacobson said. “He hasn’t run a mile in a while, but I think that at Oaklawn, with that short wire, he’ll handle it very comfortably.”

Durante is a multiple winner at a mile, as his maiden win came at the distance at Del Mar and he also won at a mile on turf at the same track in 2022.

Others shipping in for the Fifth Season include Brigadier General, who was fourth last out in the Tenacious on Dec. 23 at Fair Grounds, and Kapuna. Both have been working in New Orleans, with Kapuna gearing up for his first start since finishing fourth in a three-other-than allowance Nov. 26 at Churchill Downs.

Promise Keeper last worked at Louisiana Downs, and Logical Myth last raced at Sam Houston. Both of those tracks also had their racing and training schedules disrupted by weather.

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