Omaha Beach outruns Game Winner in Rebel division 2

Omaha Beach always has been held in high regard by trainer Richard Mandella, but it took awhile for the War Front colt to figure it out.

He’s caught on.

After losing his first four starts, three of them runner-up finishes by a half-length or less, Omaha Beach powered his way to a runaway win against maidens in his fifth start last month at Santa Anita. And, on Saturday at Oaklawn Park, he showed how far he had come this year by nosing out champion Game Winner in a terrific, second division of the Grade 2, $750,000 Rebel Stakes for 3-year-olds.

Omaha Beach ($10.80) prevailed by mere inches, as Game Winner got the best of the bob. But it wasn’t enough for Game Winner, favored at 2-5, to remain unbeaten. They finished 8 1/4 lengths in front of third-place Market King, a 48-1 shot who set the early pace before yielding to Omaha Beach. The time of 1:42.42 for 1 1/16 miles on the fast track was .07 faster than Long Range Toddy in the first division.

Gunmetal Gray was fourth and was followed, in order, by Jersey Agenda, Captain Von Trapp, Laughing Fox, Parsimony, Kaziranga, and Our Braintrust.

Mike Smith rode Omaha Beach for the first time. Flavien Prat had ridden him in his first five starts, but he took a call on Galilean before it was known the Rebel would split. They wound up in different divisions at the draw, but Smith already had secured the call.

Omaha Beach was always forwardly placed. Game Winner raced in a bit of traffic while toward the rear of the field around the first turn, got outside and into the clear heading down the backstretch, then went into the far turn four paths wide to go after Omaha Beach, who had disposed of other pace rivals.

Omaha Beach got away from Game Winner in upper stretch, but Game Winner is a relentless competitor, and he came charging anew to just miss.

“I thought I got nosed out,” Mandella said in a post-race interview with Nancy Ury-Holthus of Oaklawn Park.

Omaha Beach, owned by Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farm, earned $450,000, plus 37.5 points on the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the field for the Kentucky Derby on May 4.

Mandella said he would take Omaha Beach home to Santa Anita before plotting his next move. Obvious options would be to return to Oaklawn Park for the Arkansas Derby on April 13, or stay home for the Santa Anita Derby on April 6.

“Coming out of a maiden race, it's a big step up,” Mandella told Oaklawn’s publicity department. “Game Winner ran really good. He hadn't run in a long time. He'll probably be tough next time, but mine just broke his maiden. He might be tougher, too.”

Unlike Game Winner, who was intended for the San Felipe last week at Santa Anita – a race that ended up being cancelled owing to that track’s suspension of racing - Omaha Beach was pointed to the Rebel because Mandella desired an extra week for him to recover from a quarter crack he suffered last month. His final work last Saturday at Los Alamitos was sensational.

Game Winner was making his first start in more than four months. He was 4 for 4 last year, including a season-ending victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, which clinched for him the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male.

“He ran a tremendous race. He fought really hard,” Joel Rosario, his jockey, said on the Fox Sports 2 national telecast. “I couldn’t get by the horse on the lead.”

Bob Baffert, who trains Game Winner – as well as Improbable, who was defeated at similar 2-5 odds in the first division – said he was happy with the way both colts ran and was just glad to have an opportunity for an initial Derby prep after the San Felipe was cancelled.

“I’m just thankful I got to run them,” he said in a telephone interview. “They ran their race.”

Baffert said both would return this week to Santa Anita to train. He said Game Winner would run in the Santa Anita Derby, and Improbable would go to the Arkansas Derby.