Kentucky Derby 2019 Radar: Smarty Jones Stakes shaping up
Nominations close Thursday for Oaklawn Park’s first stop along the 2019 Kentucky Derby trail, and a number of local runners have already been mentioned in connection to the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes.
Add B P Rocket to the mix, trainer William Van Meter informed Oaklawn’s publicity staff, with the last-out Churchill Downs maiden winner having posted three weekly works in Arkansas, the most-recent a 5/8 of a mile drill Sunday in 1:01.40.
A son of Curlin, B P Rocket improved dramatically from sixth in his debut to win Nov. 9 under the Twin Spires.
“His chink in his armor when he first came up was the gate,” Van Meter said. “He’s one of those horses, the first time you do something with him, he’s like, ‘Whoa!’ And then the second time you do it with him, he has a kind of a sharp learning curve.
“Second time you do something with him, he really comes on.”
The Smarty Jones — which pays out Derby qualifying points on a 10-4-2-1 basis — will mark the third out for the Frank Fletcher Racing homebred. The race runs Jan. 25, with entries taken a week earlier.
Others targeting the Smarty Jones include Gray Attempt, winner of Fair Grounds’ Sugar Bowl Stakes, and Super Steed, who was fourth in that race. The Paul Holthus-trained Six Shooter comes out of a win in Delta Downs’ Big Drama Stakes last Saturday night, while Steve Asmussen has Long Range Toddy and Bankit, the 1-2 finishers of the Springboard Mile at Remington Park, on the work tab at Oaklawn as well.
Given his willingness to travel to Oaklawn Park, expect Bob Baffert to ship a runner from the West Coast, too. He won the Smarty Jones a year ago with the ill-fated Mourinho, whose resume compares to the Grade 3 winner Mucho Gusto, for example. Oaklawn typically cards lucrative allowance races that could be a fit for a California-based maiden winner moving through conditions.
The Smarty Jones precedes the Feb. 18 Southwest Stakes (G3), March 16 Rebel Stakes (G2) and April 13 Arkansas Derby (G1) at Oaklawn Park.