Oaklawn's delayed Southwest Stakes Day will feature large crowd of entries

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The decision to delay Southwest Stakes Day a week after a winter storm impacted training at Oaklawn Park paid dividends at the entry box Sunday, when 12 horses were entered for Saturday’s Southwest on a 12-race card that drew a total of 139 horses.

“That’s a lot of horses,” Oaklawn racing secretary Pat Pope said.

The Grade 3, $800,000 Southwest, a points race for the Kentucky Derby, goes as the 11th on a card that will begin at 11:30 a.m. Central. The 1 1/16-mile race drew stakes winners Just Steel, Liberal Arts, Magic Grant, Otto the Conqueror, and Wynstock.

The complete field from the rail with riders is: Maycocks Bay, Francisco Arrieta; Charleston, Harry Hernandez; Magic Grant, Chris Landeros; Otto the Conqueror, Joel Rosario; Wynstock, Kyle Frey; Liberal Arts, Cristian Torres; Carbone, Ricardo Santana Jr.; Common Defense, Julien Leparoux; Linebacker, Emmanuel Esquivel; Mystik Dan, Brian Hernandez Jr.; Just Steel, Ramon Vazquez; and Awesome Road, Florent Geroux.

Maycocks Bay, who is coming off an allowance route win at Fair Grounds for which he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 95, was one of two supplements to the Southwest. The other was recent maiden special weight winner Common Defense.

Wynstock, who is coming off a victory in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity, is scheduled to arrive on a flight from Southern California early in the week, Pope said.

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Liberal Arts, winner of the Grade 3 Street Sense at Churchill Downs, is scheduled to van here early in the week, trainer Robbie Medina said.

“I think, tentatively, we’ll ship on Tuesday or Wednesday,” Medina said. “We’ll probably train him Tuesday morning, put him on a truck, and get there that evening.”

Oaklawn was hit with a snowstorm on Jan. 14 and subsequent flooding rains. The weather pattern forced the track to close for training 10 straight days through last Tuesday. The decision to push the Southwest and its supporting stakes from Jan. 27 to Saturday gave locals more time to prepare for one of the richest cards of the meet at Oaklawn.

“For those stabled here, we wanted to make sure that they felt comfortable,” Pope said. “We wanted to make sure they felt great about their horses, felt their horses got the fairest shot with everything that was going on.”

Pope said 133 horses are in the body of the races Saturday and six horses are on also-eligible lists.

“Even I’m proud of that,” he quipped.

Pope said the Southwest will be the final leg of an all-stakes pick four on races 8-11.

The eighth race is the $150,000 King Cotton that drew a field of eight led by Skelly; the ninth is the $250,000 Martha Washington that features nine fillies seeking points for the Kentucky Oaks; and the 10th race is the $150,000 American Beauty, which drew nine fillies and mares led by Alva Starr.

“Last year, the same card, the Southwest had eight and the other stakes each had six,” Pope said.

The points value for both the Southwest and Martha Washington is 20-10-6-4-2.

Oaklawn’s card also includes two maiden special weight races for 3-year-olds, one over 1 1/16 miles and the other over six furlongs. There also are several allowance races.

The forecast for Saturday is a high of 51 degrees and a 25 percent chance of rain, according to AccuWeather.

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