The Second Season Has Arrived

Historically it wasn’t until 1988 that Oaklawn raced at all in the month of January.  Racing in January was something of an accommodation to horsemen who were already here with their horses.  Everyone knows that weather in January in Arkansas can be “iffy” at best.  Who knew that this year would be different? January was more like late February or early March. The first “wintry” weather isn’t really anticipated until Monday morning of this week and will supposedly last for only one day.  If it were ever going to lay a “winter mix” or “snow flurries” on us, a Monday works out pretty well.

At the beginning of the year the television sets of Oaklawn management are remotely flashed to the Weather Chanel as much as any.  We have become used to decisions involving cancellations of both training and racing.  There were eight racing cards lost in 2011, including opening day. February 3-11 was canceled last season and February 11 has been the most canceled day in Oaklawn history.  Oaklawn has lost February 11 five times in its modern history, dating back to WWII.

But Saturday, February 11, this year turned into a decent day. Chilly, to be sure, since there was a stiff north wind which was uncomfortable. Most of the 14,816 in attendance found their way inside the grandstand once the sun had dipped behind the building in mid-afternoon.  Still, we raced and continued the string of continuous days in which we have both trained and raced. Predictions for weather on Sunday night and Monday morning may put the streak of training days in some danger. But, by this point one missed day will be no big thing and Oaklawn approaches what management considers the beginning of real racing this weekend. I prefer to call it the Second Season.

If there is such a thing as pre-season at Oaklawn, it all ends with Presidents Day weekend, which comes up this weekend. Presidents Day was created officially in 1971, but has become something of a guideline for Oaklawn to determine the success or failure of its meet in the last couple of decades. The holiday Monday features the best three-year-olds on the grounds in the $250,000 Southwest Stakes and there is a $55,000 cash giveaway to fans in attendance. There have been a number of promotions on this day, but the cash giveaway seems to have struck home and crowds on Presidents Day at Oaklawn are normally the largest in the land at any racetracks.  Money talks.

What is also fun about Presidents Day is that it does offer Oaklawn’s first graded three-year-old stakes race. In other words it’s the first chance for the sophomores we watch to build earnings towards a possible start in the Kentucky Derby, which begins the annual trek towards the most elusive accomplishment in sports, the Triple Crown. Smoke Glacken was the first champion to win the one mile race, when he did so in 1997. But the race really found its way onto the national scene when it was the starting place for Smarty Jones’ Triple Crown assault in 2004. While virtually all the national attention of the three-year-old class has been focused in California, Florida and New York up to this time, there will now be some names come to the fore out of Arkansas and the picture will start to change.

Last year’s winner, Archarcharch, went on to win the Arkansas Derby then had the misfortune to draw the number one post position at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby.  He suffered a career-ending injury when bounced off the inner rail in the early running of the Run for the Roses, yet he still beat a number of rivals.  They build some pretty tough customers down here in Arkansas.

While the entries for Monday’s race won’t come until later this week, expectations are for a full field, many of whom have already been impressive at this meet.  Junebugred, a smallish colt from the barn of Steve Hobby, won the Smarty Jones Stakes on opening weekend.  He will have some support.  So, too, will Reckless Jerry, who was forced wide throughout the Smarty Jones because of his outside post position.  Since he is owned by country music star, Toby Keith, Reckless Jerry will have the chance to create a number of new fans with a win.  We’ve also seen some pretty good allowance wins since the Smarty Jones and many of those winners have not seen a race fill to give us further validation of their impressive performances.

And who to my wondering eyes should appear as a significant owner but Charles Cella, owner also of Oaklawn Park?  He had, to my knowledge, the best week of his owning career since Northern Spur won the Breeders’ Cup Turf nearly twenty years ago, when he won three races in a row and all allowances leading one of them up to the Southwest and beyond and two others into possible hunts for Oaklawn Handicap success.  He first scored with a talented three-year-old colt named Cyber Secret, then followed with his four-year-old winner, Drogue.  On Saturday he sent Gitto, who like Drogue is a son of the very good Victory Gallop, to a convincing allowance score.

Victory Gallop had some great moments at Oaklawn.  He put the first-ever loss on 1997 Horse-of-the-Year Favorite Trick when he won the 1998 Arkansas Derby.  That followed his shocking win in the 1998 Rebel and preceded his memorable snatch of the Triple Crown from Real Quiet in the final jump of the Belmont Stakes and his win in the Dubai World Cup the following spring.  Cella’s runners by Victory Gallop may just now be peaking at the right time.  Certainly there will be a lot of eyes on Cyber Secret in Monday’s race to see if he can keep the streak going. To make it all the more plausible, Cyber Secret is trained by Lynn Whiting, trainer of 1992 Kentucky Derby winner Lil E. Tee.

With the arrival of this “Second Season” of the race meet at Oaklawn we will also see a potential rematch of the most memorable stakes of the “First Season” on Saturday in the $100,000 Bayakoa Stakes for older fillies and mares at a mile-and-a-sixteenth.  In the Pippin Stakes on January 21 Absinthe Minded came back on to edge Tiz Miz Sue in a memorable contest.  Both are headed for a collision course in Saturday’s feature, a race we all will be anxious to watch.

Sometime you win, sometimes you lose.  Now I Know, the little gray three-year-old filly from the Don Von Hemel barn suffered her first loss in seven starts here on Saturday when she succumbed to the pressures of Amie’s Dini in the stretch of the Martha Washington.  Earlier in the day Von Hemel’s son, Donnie K. , had announced that the schedule for Caleb’s Posse, who had started his 2011 season with some great efforts at Oaklawn, including a win in the Smarty Jones Stakes, would be heading to New York for a race or two before his targeted start in the Metropolitan Mile at Belmont Park.  In another note, however, trainer Larry Jones did hint that 2011 Horse-of-the-Year Havre de Grace still is a possibility to defend her title in the $150,000 Azeri Stakes.  Although Havre de Grace is now in training in New Orleans, her connections remember the Azeri as possibly her best moment in 2011, when she handed arch-rival Blind Luck a three-and-a-quarter lengths defeat. 

There will be many horses going and coming in and out of Hot Springs over the next two months.  But that’s what happens when you move into the “Second Season”  and it all wraps up with the “Stretch Run”, otherwise known as the Racing Festival of the South, which will enjoy it 38^th edition this year.

By the way, it was good to see last year’s star three-year-old filly at Oaklawn, Joyful Victory, return to the winner’s circle over the weekend at Fair Grounds.  Joyful Victory had easily her best days of 2011 at Oaklawn and would be a welcome addition to the local corps, if Havre de Grace heads in a different direction.  I’m sure I’m not the first person to suggest that to the powers who be.

We’d better get tied on.  The weather outlook for this weekend is good and that suggests that we’ve got quite a ride about to blast off.  The countdown to the Second Season is on.