HOT SPRINGS -- What better for a horse about to go on sale than the gift Misty Veil received Saturday at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort.
The 6-year-old mare's win in the $150,000 Pippin comes in time for the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages sale this week in Lexington, Ky. Tonalist's daughter scored her first stakes victory in a virtual replay of the $150,000 Mistletoe over the same track last month but with a different running order.
Second on that day going a mile, Misty Veil put aside defending Pippin winner Lovely Ride on the second turn Saturday. Ramon Vazquez, in his 400th Oaklawn riding victory, held off Ice Orchid (third last time) with Mistletoe winner Butterbean edged out for third. Lovely Ride finished 6 3/4 lengths out of the show spot in the five-horse field of older fillies and mares.
Little Rock co-owners Michael Hui (pronounced Hoy) and John Yocum now await Misty Veil's moment in the sales ring, where listed as a racing or broodmare prospect. As a daughter of the 2014 Belmont Stakes upsetter of California Chrome, the horse-savvy crowd at Keeneland now will consider a runner that displayed perfect timing in the Pippin after an 0-for-7 record in stakes races last year.
"We'll set a reserve, an aggressive reserve,"said Hui, past winner of the Oaklawn Mile with Exulting for the same trainer, Mike Maker. "If we can get out, we'll sell her. If not, we'll continue to race at Oaklawn."
Hui might emerge with opportunities in such Oaklawn races as the Grade III Bayakoa, Grade II Azeri and, in April, Grade I Apple Blossom Handicap -- won last year by, respectively, A Mo Reay (trainer Brad Cox), Secret Oath (D.Wayne Lukas) and Clairiere (Steve Asmussen).
Misty Veil won by a length over slow-starting Ice Orchid on Saturday. Lovely Ride, from the rail post under Cristian Torres, tired after leading a muddy 49.09-second opening half.
Vazquez moved up the winner on the turn with an aggressive hand ride and then popped her with a left-handed stick in upper stretch. Finished her 1 1/16 mile in 1:45.29, Misty Veil paid $8.20 per $2 win ticket, keying a $9.40 exacts and $10.35 trifecta.
"I had a good feeling, just as long as the 1 [Lovely Ride] didn't get away." Hui said. "The pace was slow, but we were close. That's good for Ramon [Vazquez] to get 400. It was even better to see Ramon come up the rail. She leaves tomorrow for Kentucky."
An estimated 7,500 fans bet $378,365 on the 10 local races Saturday, temperatures warming into the 40s and the sun popping out after only 1,500 showed up Friday following morning snow showers.
Hui grew up in Monticello, where his parents were professors at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. With a 1986 bachelor's degree in math and physics from UAM and a 1988 master's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Arkansas, Hui co-founded Transportation Insight, a Hickory, N.C.-based logistics cost management consulting firm in early 2000.
Active mainly through the claiming box, Hui has had the most success with turf horses trained by Maker, a former Lukas disciple. He scored with Misty Veil in an Oaklawn stake after not entering some of his best horses because of no grass course at the track in his home state.
"I have my faith in Mike," Hui said in a 2018 interview for Bloodhorse by Oaklawn media relations writer Robert Yates. "I'm not an active participant in any form of sales. ... Claiming is the avenue through which I obtain my race horses."
Misty Veil may have priced her way Saturday into a higher market.