Oaklawn Park: Gowan's mentor nearby for advice on Rebel starter Ride On Curlin

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – If trainer Billy Gowan needs any Hall of Fame advice with Ride On Curlin, who runs Saturday in the Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park, he just needs to walk a few paces up his shed row to the stable of Jack Van Berg.

“It’s great to be able to pick his brain,” Gowan said.

Gowan is a former assistant to Van Berg, and the pair now share a barn at Oaklawn, where Gowan has brought a small string for the first time in 10 years so Ride On Curlin can participate in the track’s stakes series for 3-year-olds. The horse, who last year was third in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park, won an allowance sprint in his first start of the year Jan. 12 and then finished a troubled third in the Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest in his most recent start Feb. 17.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

“We’ve seen a lot of good horses over the years that prepped here going into the Triple Crown races, and it looked like the logical spot,” Gowan said. “This horse has loved this surface from the very first day he stepped on it. I couldn’t be more pleased with the way he’s gone over it.”

Ride On Curlin races for Daniel Dougherty, a resident of Louisville, Ky., who has owned horses for about six years. He purchased the son of Curlin as a yearling at Keeneland in 2012 for $25,000.

“Billy picked him out. Billy’s got a good eye for looking at a horse,” Dougherty said.

Gowan said Ride On Curlin was appealing for a couple of reasons.

“When I saw this horse in the ring, I liked his body, and then I saw his pedigree and said, ‘Wow, this is nice,’ ” Gowan said. “His mother was graded stakes-placed at Saratoga, and his second dam, they have a stakes race named after her at Saratoga. She’s a Grade 1 winner, Victory Ride.”

Gowan, 48, grew up in Louisiana and when with Van Berg galloped the Grade 1 winner Fit to Scout. He now lives 12 miles from Churchill Downs. A starter in the Kentucky Derby would be a first for both Gowan and Dougherty.

“It would be a dream,” Dougherty said.

The next step toward realizing that dream comes Saturday, when Ride On Curlin starts from post 2 under Kent Desormeaux.