Foyt's Colonelsdarktemper returns

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The retired race car driver A.J. Foyt Jr. will be racing on two fronts Sunday. Colonelsdarktemper, his West Virginia Derby winner, launches his 4-year-old season in the eighth race at Oaklawn Park. The same day, Foyt’s race cars will see action, said Jinks Fires, who trains Colonelsdarktemper.

“He’s got two cars racing that he owns Sunday in Florida,” Fires said.

Colonelsdarktemper made some noise on the track last year when he went 3 for 10 in his initial season, earning $710,037. Colonelsdarktemper won his debut last February at Oaklawn and went on to run second in both the Grade 3 Matt Winn at Churchill and the Grade 3 Indiana Derby before proving a determined winner of the Grade 3 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer.

“He was pretty awesome,” Fires said. “He just went to the front and never looked back. He opened up on them and I said, ‘Wow!’ He gives you what he’s got.”

Sunday’s race, an optional $62,500 claiming route over 1 1/16 miles, will be the first since September for Colonelsdarktemper. He closed out his season with a fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park, a race from which runner-up Battle Of Midway emerged to capture the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

As for Colonelsdarktemper, he came out of the Oklahoma Derby with a stress fracture to a cannon bone, Fires said.

“He was shoved over another horse’s heels and when the foot came back it hit him in the shin,” Fires said. “That’s what we believed happened.”

Coloneldarktemper has resumed working at Oaklawn, and among his drills is a bullet five-eighths in 1:00 on March 3.

“We hope we’ve got him tight enough,” Fires said.

“He’s doing great. He loves to go out and train.”

Jon Court has the mount from post 5.

“He’s very competitive, so I feel like he’ll be up in the front with them,” Fires said of Colonelsdarktemper, a son of Colonel John and the mare Sweet Temper.

Fires said depending on how the races goes, Colonelsdarktemper could become a candidate for the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap.

– additional reporting by Marcus Hersh and Jay Privman