Stars coming out for Rebel Day

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park will put on one of the most significant programs of its meet next Saturday, with champion Untapable expected to make her 4-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $300,000 Azeri and champions American Pharoah and Take Charge Brandi on schedule to meet in the Grade 2, $750,000 Rebel Stakes.

The program also will include the Grade 3, $250,000 Razorback Handicap.

“I think it’s going to be a dynamite card,” said Oaklawn racing secretary Pat Pope. “Besides the three stakes, we hope to have three allowance races, plus two maiden special weights. It will be an 11-race program.”

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Entries for the Rebel card will be taken Wednesday. The program is designed to produce starters for next month’s Racing Festival of the South, when Oaklawn puts on nine major stakes over its final week of the meet. The Azeri is a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap on April 10, while the Rebel and Razorback are preps for the respective Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby and Grade 2, $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap, both on closing day, April 11.

Nominations for the Azeri, Rebel, and Razorback close Friday and will be released DSaaturday afternoon, said Pope. He said the weights for the Razorback will be out by 1 p.m. Sunday.

The purse for the Rebel was increased by $150,000 this year by Oaklawn president Charles Cella, and the move is looking like a shrewd one as American Pharoah and Take Charge Brandi will make some history if both start in the 1 1/16-mile race. According to research by Daily Racing Form’s Jay Privman, the Rebel would be the first occasion for the previous year’s 2-year-old champions to meet prior to the Kentucky Derby since champions officially began being recorded in 1936.

“This is the race that Mr. Cella and his family raised, and now look at the potential if it pulls off next Saturday,” Pope said. “Look what happens the first year Mr. Cella puts the money there. The timing, the purse, everything has to come together for something like this to happen.”

Untapable was last year’s 3-year-old champion filly for a season in which she won such races at the Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff in her most recent out Oct. 31. The Distaff score came over Don’t Tell Sophia, who had been considered for the Azeri but will not run, trainer Phil Sims said Friday.

“She won’t be ready,” Sims said.

Oaklawn is bracing for a large crowd next Saturday, and weather permitting, the infield will be open, said track spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyt. She said it’s the first of five Saturdays, weather permitting, that the infield will be open. Forecasters are calling for highs in the mid-60s for Rebel Day.