HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Rhetorical’s second-place finish to Humble Smarty in an optional claimer in January is looking golden as he heads into Thursday’s eighth race at Oaklawn. Humble Smarty returned last weekend to win the $60,000 Nodouble Breeders’ at Oaklawn and in the process the 9-year-old earned his second straight Beyer Speed Figure of 94.
The outstanding meet that leading trainer Chris Richard is having has been months in the making. Richard, with clients like Maggi Moss, the current leading owner at Oaklawn, began claiming horses for the Hot Springs season last fall at Remington Park.
Richard will head into Thursday’s card at Oaklawn with a 16-for-41 mark at the meet, or a 39 percent win rate. His charges have earned $311,648 at the meet. It is the fastest start Richard has ever had at Oaklawn, where last year he finished seventh in the standings by going 17 for 65.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Called to Serve behaved like a kid when he arrived at trainer Nick Canani’s Belmont Park stable last fall.
“He was quite a handful,” Canani recalled.
The gelding had finished third in the West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park in August and third in the Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park in late September when owner Marc Ferrell moved him from trainer Peter Eurton in California to the Eastern-based Canani.
In baseball, the gold standard for hitters is .300 and for pitchers it’s 20 wins. In racing, trainers strive to reach the 20 percent win rate. There’s a long way to go in the meeting, but Golden Gate Fields is sporting two trainers with win percentages not just above 20 but above 40.
John Martin leads all trainers at the meeting, which began Dec. 26, with a 45-percent winning rate and 72 percent in the money (21-6-7 from 47 starts). Not bad, considering he was 0 for 5 to start the meet.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark.– Oxbow could have two more starts before the Kentucky Derby depending how many qualifiying points it apears he will need, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Tuesday. One possible approach, he said, is to look at the Louisiana Derby on March 30 and the Arkansas Derby on April 13. Both races offer 100 points to the winner on the new system governing Kentucky Derby preference if the May 4 race is oversubscribed.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It’s still winter, but glimmers of light appear as first post reverts back to 12:50 p.m. when the racing week gets under way Thursday.
Expression, who has earned $97,994 since owner-trainer Charlie Baker claimed her from a win over $35,000 maidens here last winter, will try to pad her inner-track r é sum é – and Baker’s bank account – when she goes favored against six other fillies and mares in the featured eighth race, a first-level optional claimer at six furlongs.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Eight horses entered in a turf-allowance feature Thursday at Santa Anita are coming and going from different directions. Some are on their way up, others on their way back, others on their way down.
Last-out winner Causeithertz moves up one level as a favorite in the one-mile nonwinners-of-three allowance, with an $80,000 optional claiming provision. His chief rival is lightly raced Tigah, a late-runner starting for the first time in nine months.
David Wilkenfeld has already made the score of a lifetime that most horseplayers can only dream about. In 2008, he had the sole winning ticket of a $3.3 million pick six at Santa Anita.
Five years later, Wilkenfeld is on the cusp of being able to live the dream that virtually every horse owner wants to experience. As the owner of Vyjack, Wilkenfeld has an undefeated 3-year-old who could be on his way to the Kentucky Derby.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It’s been a quiet winter for trainers Milt Wolfson and Mark Frostad, but both will try to make a little noise when sending out two of the key players in Thursday’s $65,000 featured event at Gulfstream Park.
Wolfson will saddle his multiple stakes-winning filly Frolic’s Revenge, while Frostad counters with last year’s Queen’s Plate runner-up, Irish Mission, in the 1 1/16-mile turf event to be decided under high-priced optional claiming conditions for fillies and mares who have never won a graded stakes.
