Oaklawn Park: Will Take Charge, Tapiture sharp in workouts

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Champion Will Take Charge and Southwest Stakes winner Tapiture put in works Sunday at Oaklawn Park before rain moved into the area and temperatures dropped. The track was rated “fast” for workouts Sunday.

Will Take Charge, preparing for Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Santa Anita Handicap, came out when the track opened at 7 a.m. Central on an overcast, 60-degree morning. He was strong throughout a half-mile work in 47.80 seconds, the fastest of 74 moves at the distance Sunday.

“He went well,” trainer D. Wayne Lukas said. “Any superlatives you’d like to use would be appropriate.”

Will Take Charge is scheduled to ship to Santa Anita on Monday. He will be making his second start of the year in the Santa Anita Handicap, following a runner-up finish in last month’s Grade 1 Donn Handicap, a race won by Lea in track-record time at Gulfstream Park.

Luis Saez has the mount in the Santa Anita Handicap, Lukas said. Will Take Charge, the champion 3-year-old male of 2013, races for Willis Horton and Three Chimneys LLC.

Tapiture came out in the second set Sunday and worked five furlongs in company in 1:00.40. The move was the second-fastest of 48 at the distance. Tapiture is preparing for the Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn on March 15.

“I had originally planned on working him tomorrow, moved it up to today, and beat the weather out,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “The racetrack was in good shape. He worked well.”

Training was delayed shortly after Tapiture came onto the track so the horse ambulance could retrieve a horse situated along the outside rail by the half-mile pole. Tapiture, accompanied by a pony ridden by Asmussen’s assistant, Darren Fleming, was able to duck into the paddock with his workmate and emerged when training resumed.

“He was able to walk around the paddock, then went out and worked well, came back good,” Asmussen said.

Tapiture, under exercise rider Abel Flores, was situated outside of his workmate, and the horses moved in tandem to the midway point on the turn, where they came to another worker. The trio continued together, with Tapiture coming three wide into the stretch, then moving clear of his company in an energetic move.

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

Tapiture won last month’s Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest at Oaklawn over Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes winner Strong Mandate, who was out for a gallop as Tapiture worked Sunday. Tapiture, who captured the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes last fall at Churchill Downs, ranks sixth on the points leaderboard for the Kentucky Derby in a qualifying system administered by Churchill. He races for Ron Winchell.