Springboard Mile: Arctic Beast, Spice Runner top 12-horse field

Kentucky Derby points will be on the line next Saturday when the unbeaten multiple stakes winner Arctic Beast meets Grade 3 winner Spice Runner and local stakes winners Essential Time and Royalamerican in the $300,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park.

The 2-year-olds are part of a field of 12 that was drawn on Friday. The Springboard Mile offers its first five finishers points on a scale of 10-5-3-2-1. Coal Battle, who won the race last season, went on to capture the Smarty Jones and Rebel at Oaklawn Park.

The Springboard Mile is being showcased on a card of six stakes with a total value of $625,000. The Springboard is the finale on a 12-race program that closes out the meet. The card has a special twilight post of 5 p.m. Central.

Arctic Beast is 3 for 3, with all of his wins coming in his native New York. He’s won back-to-back stakes, the New York Breeders’ Futurity and Aspirant, at Finger Lakes. Ricardo Santana Jr. has the mount from the rail for trainer Mike Maker.

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Spice Runner won the Grade 3 Iroquois in September at Churchill Downs. He will start from post 7 under Stewart Elliott. Remington’s leading trainer, Steve Asmussen, conditions Spice Runner and also will saddle Time for Music, to be ridden by his son, Erik Asmussen, and Way Beyond, who gets the services of the meet’s leading rider, Ramon Vazquez.

Essential Time won the Clever Trevor on the Oklahoma Derby Day undercard in September. Royalamerican has captured both the Oklahoma Classics Juvenile and the Don McNeill at Remington.

The complete Springboard Mile field from the rail with riders is: Arctic Beast, Santana; Time for Music, Erik Asmussen; Essential Time, Iram Diego; Royalamerican, David Cabrera; My Dream Zapper, Ernesto Valdez-Jiminez; Supreme Good, Christopher Elliott; Spice Runner, Stewart Elliott; Way Beyond, Vazquez; Western Man, Richard Eramia; Big Apple Patrick, Walter Rodriguez; Jets Rio, Rene Diaz; and Express Kid, Jose Alvarez.

Other highlights on the card include the $75,000 Toby Keith for 2-year-old fillies at a mile, the $75,000 Jeffrey Hawk Memorial that drew past winner U.S. Army, and the $75,000 She’s All In with two-time horse of the meet Miss Code West.

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