Oaklawn Park notes: Fire Starter makes stakes debut in Smarty Jones

Fire Starter, who rolled to a 10 3/4-length maiden special weight win last month at Laurel, will make his stakes debut Monday in the $150,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn. He is one of 10 horses in the one-mile race drawn Friday. Coastline, the probable favorite, will break from post 10.

Fire Starter drew post 3, one start following his dominant win Dec. 31. The victory, which came for trainer Tony Dutrow, validated the faith Steve Hobby, the horse’s regular trainer, has in the Tapit colt who had a rocky race one start prior, when pulled up at Churchill.

“I’ve always been very high on him,” Hobby said. “He blew the first turn at Churchill, as the favorite, and all we could guess is that right there, to the outside, is the gap that we use every morning. All I could figure is he just got spooked and wanted to run home, and there was no reason for it.

“I sent him up to Tony, and Tony said he couldn’t find any reason for it, and he ran him and he won real impressive.”

Fire Starter then returned to Hobby, who trains the horse for Arkansas residents JoAnn and Alex Lieblong. In one of his preps for the Smarty Jones, he breezed a half-mile at Oaklawn on Jan. 13.

“He had an awesome work a few days ago,” Hobby said. “I worked him around this turn just to make sure, and he did fine. [The Churchill race] was just one of those you throw out and go on with it.”

Fire Starter was a $300,000 yearling purchase at Keeneland in September 2012.

“He’s a typical Tapit,” Hobby said, “not real heavy, moves over the ground just beautifully, very light on his feet.”

Robby Albarado has the mount Monday.

The complete field from the rail with riders is D’cajun Cat, Ricardo Santana Jr.; Whyruawesome, Eddie Martin Jr.; Fire Starter; Son of a Preacher, Cliff Berry; A Step Ahead, Francisco Torres; Walt, Ken Tohill; Denali Rahy Ruler, Alex Birzer; Tanzanite Cat, Norberto Arroyo,Jr.; Unstoppable Colby, Jon Court; and Coastline, Shaun Bridgmohan.

The Smarty Jones, the first race in Oaklawn’s series for 3-year-olds, is worth 10 points to the winner on the new Kentucky Derby preference system administered by Churchill Downs. The race will go as the eighth on a nine-race program, at 4:38 p.m. Central.