Double your pleasure, Double your fun: Southwest Stakes
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Breaking news from Hot Springs, Arkansas … In honor of my first visit to Oaklawn Park in several years, (don’t ask me why I’ve taken this long to get back, because this place is one of my favorite places) the management has succeeded in attracting an overflow field of Kentucky Derby hopefuls for Monday’s Southwest Stakes, prompting them to split it into two divisions. The splitting of graded stakes is a practice seldom seem today in the reality of fewer starts and more rest between races, so needless to say the announcement blew me away. Imagine how much effort the folks at Oaklawn put in, and all the horsemen involved to get this to happen just to make my visit all that more enjoyable.
In all seriousness, Oaklawn Park is a great place to be this time of year for both horse and human and has become a virtual hotbed of Kentucky Derby prep racing, and the two divisions of the Southwest should only bolster that reputation. The Oaklawn series of preps that also includes the Smarty Jones, Rebel, and $1,000,000 Arkansas Derby, has helped produce five champions, two Kentucky Derby winners, three Preakness Stakes winners and two Belmont Stakes in just the past eight years.
Oaklawn management made the official decision to split this morning when it was clear enough horses had entered to run in the one-mile race. The two divisions will be run as races eight and nine on the 10-race card. The Southwest has been split two other times, the last being 2002 when the race was still ungraded. The last graded Kentucky Derby prep to be split was the 1993 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park.
“Mr. Cella’s sporting nature and a lot of hard work by our racing office, led by racing secretary Pat Pope, has allowed us to offer two Southwest Stakes,” said David Longinotti, Assistant General Manager of Racing. “In 2004, Mr. Cella took steps to make Oaklawn’s 3-year-old program the best in the country by raising the Arkansas Derby to $1 million and offering a $5 million bonus to any horse that swept the Southwest, Rebel, Arkansas Derby and Kentucky Derby. We found Smarty Jones that year and we’re excited to see who emerges this time.”
Prior to the start of the 2012 meet, Oaklawn announced the bump of the Rebel Stakes from $300,000 to $500,000, and they will be raising the bar by doubling the purse of both divisions of the Southwest. Each race will have the original $250,000 purse and the graded status, allowing for twice as many horses to earn graded earnings, a determining factor in making the Kentucky Derby field. The additional Southwest Stakes brings the total purses for Oaklawn’s graded 3-year-old races to $2 million, a $550,000 increase in graded earnings available for 3-year-olds over last year. The Rebel will be run Saturday, March 17 and the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby will be Saturday, April 14, closing day of the meet.
Finally the two divisions of the Southwest Stakes means good news for horse players, as a special late daily double will be held for the two divisions … a wager that I most certainly will be playing … picks to come!
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