Oaklawn Park: Will Take Charge continues to train strongly

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Nothing says Oaklawn Park’s annual Racing Festival of the South is right around the corner more than a champion putting in a major work, and that was the case Tuesday when Will Take Charge drilled for the Grade 2, $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap.

The festival opens Saturday with the Grade 3, $400,000 Fantasy, one of nine stakes to be run over the final week of the meet, which ends April 12. The stakes are worth a cumulative $3.3 million. The Oaklawn Handicap, which is also expected to draw Revolutionary and Golden Lad, shares the closing-day card with the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.

Will Take Charge, one of the first horses to step on the track Tuesday, breezed five furlongs in 1:01.60. Oaklawn head clocker Jim Hamilton carried the horse through fractions of 12.40 seconds for the opening eighth of a mile, 25 seconds for the first quarter, and 38 seconds for three furlongs. Will Take Charge went in 23.60 seconds for the final quarter and galloped out six furlongs in 1:15.40. Will Take Charge, who worked under regular exercise rider Alberto Rodriguez, reached out nicely to the wire as he continues to make a highly favorable impression in his training up to the Oaklawn Handicap.

“He’s having a great month,” said D. Wayne Lukas, who trains Will Take Charge for Three Chimneys LLC and Willis Horton. “He gets along awfully well here.”

Will Take Charge is based at Oaklawn, but will be making his first start here this year after opening his season with runner-up finishes in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap.

Luis Saez is the regular rider of Will Take Charge, the champion 3-year-old of 2013, and will be aboard for the Oaklawn Handicap. Lukas said Tuesday that Saez would also ride Strong Mandate in the Arkansas Derby, as well as Unstoppable Colby on the same card in the $100,000 Northern Spur.

Lukas has five horses pointing for festival stakes, the others being Courageous Julie in the Fantasy for 3-year-old fillies and Brewing in the $100,000 Bachelor on April 11. He is the all-time winningest festival trainer, with 14 stakes wins in the series, which was inaugurated in 1974.