Just Steel to remove blinkers for Southwest Stakes

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Stakes winner Just Steel will remove blinkers for the Southwest, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Tuesday. The horse is coming off a runner-up finish in the Smarty Jones, a race in which he tracked the pace, took the lead, and was overtaken in the later stages by the stretch-running Catching Freedom.

Just Steel came into the Smarty Jones off a win in the Ed Brown Stakes at Churchill Downs.

“I’m going to take the blinkers off,” Lukas said. “I just think he doesn’t need them. They weren’t very big – he had a small cup on them. We’ll make the change.”

Just Steel is a son of Justify who races for BC Stables. Lukas said Ramon Vazquez, who was aboard for the Smarty Jones, has the mount in the Southwest.

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Other potential starters for the Southwest, according to their respective trainers, include Otto the Conqueror, winner of the $300,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park; Magic Grant, winner of the same track’s Clever Trevor Stakes; and Lightline, the runner-up to Carbone in recent allowance at Oaklawn.

Skelly’s schedule

Skelly won his sixth straight race in a recent allowance at Oaklawn and is meant for the local stakes program this season after winning last year’s Grade 3 Count Fleet and Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.

But the winter storm that moved into the region Sunday afternoon and has disrupted training through Wednesday might impact his schedule. The next race for his division is the $150,000 King Cotton on the undercard of the Southwest Stakes.

“We nominated to the King Cotton,” Asmussen said. “Obviously, the weather is not cooperating with what we would like to do. We’ll see what happens.”

Skelly was making his first start since a freshening in the allowance Dec. 30.

◗ High Class, who has won her last three starts, including the Poinsettia at Oaklawn, is being pointed for the track’s $150,000 American Beauty, said Asmussen.

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