Man in the Can's win fills his trainer with Razorback pride

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ron Moquett is fiercely proud of his Arkansas heritage, so there was a little something extra to a race he won last week at Churchill Downs.

Moquett sent out an Arkansas-bred named Man in the Can to win a 1 1/8-mile first-level allowance for 3-year-olds on Friday. He earned a second straight 87 Beyer Speed Figure and is now 4 for 5, and likely will get a shot at making the Kentucky Derby with his next start.

“I think he’ll fit with a lot of these other 3-year-olds,” said Moquett. “He’s an improving horse at the right time.”

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Moquett was raised in the tiny town of Pocola, Okla., just across the state line from Fort Smith, Ark., his official birthplace.

“Pocola had only one stoplight and no hospital,” said Moquett, 48. “You shopped and did everything in Fort Smith.”

Moquett began his career in racing on the Oaklawn Park backstretch in the mid-1990s and looks forward to taking his stable back home every winter. He is fully aware that Arkansas-breds have never been prominent in racing’s upper crust. Nodouble, who ran his last race in 1970, remains the all-time leading earner ($846,749) in their ranks.

“I was proud of the way this horse ran against all those Kentucky-breds the other day,” he said. “He beat older horses in his last start at Oaklawn, and he’s won twice around two turns now. Besides, he doesn’t know where he was bred.”

Man in the Can is owned by his breeders, J.R. and Rita Young of Van Buren, Ark. The colt is by the young sire Can the Man, who won 3 of 6 starts while racing in 2013-14.

The meaning of Man in the Can’s name can be interpreted at least a couple of different ways.

“J.R. says it’s for a dude in jail,” said Moquett, “but I think it’s funnier another way because I have the sense of humor of an 11-year-old.”

Moquett said he is leaning toward the July 11 Blue Grass at Keeneland as the next start for Man in the Can, although the July 8 Indiana Derby at Indiana Grand is another option. Both are points qualifiers toward the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby.