Oaklawn Park: Will Take Charge has final breeze for Oaklawn Handicap
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Champion Will Take Charge has been focused and impressive in his training all year at Oaklawn Park, and in his final work for the Oaklawn Handicap over the local strip Tuesday, he displayed those attributes once again. Will Take Charge cruised three furlongs in 35.80 seconds to prepare for the Grade 2, $600,000 race Saturday.
The Oaklawn Handicap will share a card with the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby on the final program of the meet. Will Take Charge, scheduled to enter stud next year, will be racing at his home track for the first time this meet after running second in both the Grade 1 Donn at Gulfstream Park in February and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in March.
“He’s ready to go,” trainer D. Wayne Lukas said. “He’s made two trips around the country, and he’s settled in here, and he’s just doing super. I just need to have him run his race. I think if he runs his race, that we’ll be just fine.”
Will Take Charge worked in the first set Tuesday on a sloppy, sealed track. He began his drill at the quarter pole and continued past the wire to the seven-eighths pole. The move was designed to “let him just catch his stride,” Lukas said. Oaklawn head clocker Jim Hamilton had Will Take Charge’s first furlong in 11.60 seconds and the quarter-mile in 22.80. The horse worked under regular exercise rider Alberto Rodriguez and will be ridden Saturday by Luis Saez.
Will Take Charge, the champion 3-year-old of 2013, races for the partnership of Three Chimneys LLC and Willis Horton.
The field for the Oaklawn Handicap also could include Blingo, Carve, Golden Lad, Moreno, Prayer for Relief, Revolutionary, and Right to Vote. Entries for the 1 1/8-mile race were to be taken Wednesday.
Lukas also had Arkansas Derby candidate Strong Mandate blow out Tuesday, with the horse breezing three furlongs in 37 seconds. He, too, went from the quarter pole to the seven-eighths pole under Rodriguez. Saez has the mount on the horse, who worked in the third set of workers.
Others probable for the Arkansas Derby are Bayern, Commissioner, Conquest Titan, Danza, Ride On Curlin, Tapiture, and Thundergram.