Kale's Angel cuts back in search of second stakes win at meet
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Kale’s Angel appears to have a host of variables in his favor Saturday as he seeks to win his second stakes race of the Oaklawn Park meet in the $150,000 Renaissance.
The six-furlong race for 3-year-olds drew a field of seven that includes the Grade 3-placed Three Echoes and stakes-placed Perfect Magic. Kale’s Angel is the lone stakes winner in the field by virtue of his victory in the $150,000 Advent over both of those rivals on the Dec. 6 opening-day card. The Beyer Speed Figure of 93 that he earned in the 5 1/2-furlong race is the best career number in the Renaissance.
Kale’s Angel will be cutting back to one turn Saturday following a credible third-place finish in the Smarty Jones, which was the meet’s first points race for the Kentucky Derby.
“We don’t rule anything out, but I think we all tend to think he’s probably going to be best up to, say, a mile, based on pedigree,” trainer Peter Miller said. “I thought he ran well last time. He kind of had to make a couple of different moves and was down on the deeper part of the racetrack. I thought he hung in there quite well.”
The Smarty Jones was run Jan. 4 and gives Kale’s Angel recency on all of his rivals. This variable might be more significant than usual, as a winter storm led to the track being closed for training from Jan. 9 through Tuesday. It was one of the reasons Kale’s Angel was entered back in the Renaissance.
“It kind of wasn’t necessarily the plan,” Miller said. “Sometimes you need to call an audible and adjust. That’s kind of what we did there. The horse is doing really well, and we figured we’ve got a little bit of a conditioning edge with the race two weeks ago.”
Miller also thought Kale’s Angel would fit well with the prospective field for the Renaissance.
Kale’s Angel could be bidding from off the pace as he cuts back from 1 1/16 miles. Ramon Vazquez, who has ridden the horse in each of his starts at Oaklawn, has the mount on the son of Complexity for Tom Kagele and Ernest Marchosky.
Kale’s Angel is named for Kale Robinson, a 17-year-old relative of Kagele’s who died in February.
Surveying the rest of the field, Perfect Magic could show speed from his rail post following a third-place finish in the Advent. Three Echoes, who in July ran third in the Grade 3 Sanford at Saratoga, finished fourth in the Advent. Both horses are trained by Steve Asmussen, who has named his sons to ride the horses, with Eclipse Award finalist and apprentice Erik Asmussen on Perfect Magic and Keith Asmussen on Three Echoes.
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