OPENING DAY AT OAKLAWN: Let the dreaming begin

Pharoah’s feats feed 3-year-old frenzy

Dothraki Queen takes a stroll with her exercise rider during a recent workout at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs. Cold weather canceled the fi rst three days of live racing last season, but all systems are go for today’s opener. Nine races are scheduled to take place, including the $100,000 Dixie Belle Stakes.
Dothraki Queen takes a stroll with her exercise rider during a recent workout at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs. Cold weather canceled the fi rst three days of live racing last season, but all systems are go for today’s opener. Nine races are scheduled to take place, including the $100,000 Dixie Belle Stakes.

HOT SPRINGS -- The 2016 Oaklawn Park season starts today. For many patrons, it will provide an opportunity to gather with friends, eat corned beef sandwiches and buy $2 tickets on their horse of choice.

photo

Trainer Ron Moquett works with Whitmore at his stable early Wednesday at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs. Whitmore could be Moquett’s best shot at 3-year-old success this year.

photo

THE SENTINEL-RECORD

Oaklawn Park employees work to get the stands ready in advance of today’s first day of racing in the 2016 meet at the Hot Springs thoroughbred racing facility. Gates open at 11 a.m. and the first post is scheduled for 12:35 p.m.

For the men and women in the barns and jockey's dressing room, it's their first chance of the year to build on their dreams.

In a year when Oaklawn is expected to award a record $27 million in purse money, the track's best 3-year-olds are being directed toward Oaklawn's much talked-about stepping stones along the Road to the Kentucky Derby and Road to the Kentucky Oaks.

American Pharoah's accomplishments last season appear out of reach, when -- after victories in Oaklawn's Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby -- he became the first horse since 1978 to win racing's Triple Crown. He also won the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

"He's probably the best horse of my lifetime," said trainer Ron Moquette, who got a firsthand look at American Pharoah in the Arkansas Derby and Kentucky Derby when he saddled Far Right in those races.

Far Right, winner of the Smarty Jones and Southwest Stakes last season, finished second to American Pharoah in the Arkansas Derby -- beaten by 8 lengths -- and checked in 15th in the Kentucky Derby after breaking from the extreme outside post.

Far Right, who became Moquette's first Kentucky Derby entrant, is back at Moquette's Oaklawn barn to begin his 4-year-old campaign.

Moquette's best shot for 3-year-old success likely will come with Whitmore, which finished fifth in the Grade III Delta Downs Jackpot on Nov. 21. Moquette said Thursday he was unsure when Whitmore would make his first start this season, but it should come either Monday in the 1-mile Smarty Jones or Saturday in an allowance/optional claiming 6-furlong race.

Moquette said he was hesitant to start Whitmore in a crowded field of 12 or more horses this early in the season.

"He's still learning, so if it looks like everybody and their brother and their first cousin are in the Smarty Jones, I'll sandbag and wait before we run him in a race that competitive," Moquette said.

Horsemen dream of Kentucky Derby glory, but they also know the good fortune required to make the race in the first place.

"It was really fun for me, and part of it was that people where I'm from don't get to do that very often," Moquette said. "I felt like it wasn't just me going, but everybody that's been associated with me, everybody that's worked for me or had horses for me. I felt like I was going there for everybody, the people I've worked for before. So it was awesome.

"But now the eternal thirst is for us is to do better. Going there's not enough. You want to do better."

Last season, racing Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas -- trainer of a record 14 Triple Crown race winners -- guided Mr. Z through Oaklawn's Road to the Derby series to a start in the Kentucky Derby.

Lukas said last winter that horsemen and owners who say they're indifferent to participation in the Kentucky Derby are "lying through their teeth."

For all of his success, that's why Lukas, 81, remains in the game, and he has two horses scheduled to start Road to the Derby races this weekend. Gray Sky is entered in the Smarty Jones, and Z Royal in the Grade III LeComte Stakes at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, scheduled for Saturday.

Lukas said the longer stretch at Fair Grounds should benefit the closer Z Royal, whereas the shorter stretch for 1-mile races at Oaklawn, which ends at the 1/16th pole, might benefit pace-setting Gray Sky.

"In mile races here, you really need to be in the top three when you enter the stretch," he said.

After Oaklawn -- where Mr. Z finished third in the Smarty Jones -- the Southwest and the Arkansas Derby, he raced eight more times in 2015 and increased his career earnings to $1,160,378. He finished 13th in the Kentucky Derby, fifth in the Preakness Stakes and sixth in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

"Even with the luck we've had in the Breeders' Cup, you don't go in there overconfident," said Lukas, who has trained horses to 20 Breeders' Cup victories. "But we thought that he merited a chance. That's pretty much what you do with all of those races. We thought he had a good, solid campaign, and we thought he deserved a chance."

Lukas said Mr. Z, who has been away from training since late November, should return to Oaklawn on Feb. 1.

"Mr. Z is real sound and a real durable horse," he said. "He actually thrived on activity. A lot of them you can't do what I did with him, but he never missed anything. He ran whatever we wanted. We just kept trying to get him a race he'd be competitive in, and he went right down the line, and I think he'll have an even better 4-year-old year."

Three-year-old mania spreads beyond the Kentucky Derby for trainers of fillies.

Ingrad Mason's first appearance as a trainer in the Kentucky Oaks came after the success of a filly named Sarah Sis, who finished second in the Dixie Belle and Martha Washington Stakes last season before her victory in Oaklawn's Grade III Honeybee Stakes qualified her for the Kentucky Oaks.

Sarah Sis pulled up before the finish of the Kentucky Oaks but came out of it uninjured and raced five more times in 2015. The highlight for Mason occurred Oct. 17, when Sarah Sis won the Grade II Raven Run Stakes at Keeneland.

"She's proved to me she's capable of winning a Grade I race," Mason said. "Obviously she should run even better as a 4-year-old."

But the focus at Oaklawn in the past decade has been developing 3-year-olds equipped to handle the rigors of the Triple Crown races.

Since 2004, the Smarty Jones Stakes has been added to the schedule of Oaklawn's 3-year-old preps and has become an important early test for trainers who want to see whether their horses should go on to the Southwest, Rebel Stakes and possibly the Arkansas Derby.

Moquette said he's always excited to get the season started at Oaklawn. Trainer Donnie K. Von Hemel, who plans to enter Synchrony in the Smarty Jones, agreed.

"It's always good to come back to Oaklawn and to get things kicked off," Von Hemel said. "Our barn's excited, because for us it's the first time in the new year that we'll be racing. You set a goal for your stable, and you want to get off to a good start."

Sports on 01/15/2016

Upcoming Events