Game Winner set for highly anticipated return in Rebel Stakes

With apologies to the late, great Ernie Banks, let’s race two.

A series of unfortunate events at Santa Anita has resulted in split divisions of the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes, with the upshot that the two colts listed as the top two choices on Daily Racing Form’s Derby Watch list – Game Winner and Improbable – have traveled to Oaklawn for a blockbuster card on Saturday.

In addition to the Rebel, the card includes the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri for older females and the $350,000 Essex Handicap for older runners. The Azeri is a sensational race, with last year’s champion female sprinter, Shamrock Rose, taking on Grade 1 winners Elate, Eskimo Kisses, and Midnight Bisou.

But this is Derby season, and it’s the Derby aspirants who are the headliners on the 11-race program, which begins at 1:05 p.m. Central.

Game Winner and Improbable are unbeaten and are seeking to remain that way, as Oaklawn split those Bob Baffert trainees into separate divisions, as it did with runners trained by Jerry Hollendorfer and Richard Mandella, who also shipped in from Southern California. Both races are worth $750,000 and offer 37.5 points to the winner based on the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the field for the Kentucky Derby on May 4.

Game Winner goes in the second division, race 10 on the card. He will be making his first start at 3 in what will be the first of two scheduled preps for the Derby.

Churchill Downs is where Game Winner was last seen in the afternoon. He overcame a tough trip – losing position early and being floated wide – in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to get up in time for his fourth win and third in a Grade 1. That résumé brought him the Eclipse Award as the champion 2-year-old male of 2018.

“He’s the man. He’s No. 1,” Baffert said.

Game Winner will need to show that he has progressed over the winter and stave off the upstarts seeking to topple the reigning champ. Nine are entered against him, including a quartet trained by Steve Asmussen, who entered six runners in the Rebel. Two Asmussen runners ended up in the division topped by Improbable.

Game Winner did the bulk of his training at Santa Anita before heading to Los Alamitos last weekend to get in his final drill of the series while Santa Anita’s surface was undergoing diagnostic testing. He’s not a flashy worker and usually works in company to keep him occupied. But as in his races, he’s relentless.

“He’s a hunter,” Baffert said.

And as Game Winner has progressed toward his first start of the year, the quality of his works seemed to increase.

“We’re leaning on him now,” said Baffert, who said he expects Game Winner and Improbable to run well but both to be better by the first Saturday in May.

“The goal is to have them super-cherry by Derby Day,” he said.

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Game Winner already owns two victories at the Rebel distance of 1 1/16 miles. Baffert believes Game Winner will do even better with more distance this spring.

“Distance is not going to be a problem for him,” he said.

Omaha Beach, the Mandella runner who ended up in this race, comes off a win over maidens on a sloppy, sealed track and was second to the well-regarded Nolo Contesto in his previous start. He has trained sensationally for this race.

The Hollendorfer representative in this division is the long-fused Gunmetal Gray, who won the Sham in January before finishing a distant second to Mucho Gusto last month in the Robert B. Lewis. He needs a hot pace to help his late run, and the pace should be solid, especially with stretch-out sprinter Market King leaving from the rail and further pace provided by Jersey Agenda.

Our Braintrust ships in off a close third in the Withers, in which he got a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 95. He adds blinkers for this race.

Of the Asmussen quartet, the best appear to be Laughing Fox and Captain Von Trapp, each coming off a first-level allowance victory at Oaklawn.

Laughing Fox has won both his starts this season at Oaklawn, both going two turns, after two losses sprinting.

Captain Von Trapp is 2 for 2 since adding blinkers and switching to Ramon Vazquez, but he must overcome the outside draw.