Smack Smack will point to Fifth Season at Oaklawn

Smack Smack has developed into one of the top older horses in the Southwest over the second half of the year. He won last week’s $150,000 Zia Park Distance Championship and then was sent to Oaklawn Park.

“He’s sitting here in Hot Springs, waiting on the stakes here,” said trainer Don Von Hemel.

Von Hemel said the horse is a candidate for the $100,000 Fifth Season on Jan. 16.

Smack Smack won his third stakes of the year in the Zia Park Distance Championship, a race he captured by a neck over Southern California shipper Point Piper. Smack Smack earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 93.

“For a minute, I thought he might get beat, then he really dug in,” Von Hemel said. “That last sixteenth of a mile he forged to the front and held sway.”

Earlier this year, Smack Smack won the $55,000 Veterans at Zia and the $175,000 Governor’s Cup at Remington. He races for country artist Toby Keith and is part of a 10-horse stable the 81-year-old Von Hemel will have at Oaklawn.