Pardon Me Z the sentimental favorite as Fires takes final stakes shot

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Walk Away Kaye is the one to beat in the $150,000 Rainbow Miss on Friday at Oaklawn Park, but the sentimental favorite will be Pardon Me Z for the retiring trainer Jinks Fires.

“She’ll probably be the last stakes starter I’ll have,” the 85-year-old Fires said.

The Rainbow Miss is a six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies bred in Arkansas. It’s part of a weekend spotlighting the state’s breeding program, as Friday night is the annual Arkansas Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Horsemen’s Association banquet and Saturday brings the running of the $150,000 Rainbow.

Fires will be the guest speaker at the banquet, but before then, he will saddle Pardon Me Z in a field of 10. Walk Away Kaye will garner the bulk of the public’s support for a record that includes a runner-up finish to Counting Stars, eventual winner of the Grade 2 Fantasy, in the Astral Spa overnight stakes in December at Oaklawn. Erik Asmussen has the mount from post 5 for JRita Young Thoroughbreds and trainer Danny Pish.

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Pardon Me Z will break from post 9, and Fires hopes she can pull an Archarcharch by winning her maiden in a stakes race. It’s what his 2011 Arkansas Derby winner did as a 2-year-old, when Archarcharch captured the Sugar Bowl at Fair Grounds off a runner-up finish in a maiden special weight in his career debut. Pardon Me Z debuted last out and was second by a half-length in a March 19 maiden race at Oaklawn.

“I think she’ll run well,” Fires said. “The horse that won last time, that beat her, we had worked with her twice already and we beat her in a workout. We stalked the 8-5 favorite all the way [last out] and finally got by her and more or less took the starch out of her, but she also took the starch out of us and the [winner] was laying back there and nailed us the last few jumps.”

Francisco Arrieta, who rides 2025 Arkansas-bred of the Year Haulin Ice, has the mount on Pardon Me Z for her breeder, Georgie Stuart.

“We’ll see how it unfolds, but she’ll probably be just off the pace,” Fires said. “That’s where we’d like to be.”

Fires is an Arkansas native who has long been a constant presence at Oaklawn.

“I came to the track here in 1959,” he said. “Other than a couple of years when I got drafted in Army, I’ve been here. Frontside or backside, nobody’s been here this long!”

Fires currently has five horses in training and said he will retire to his home in Hot Springs when the Oaklawn meet closes May 2.

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