Watch: Baffert's Dessman looks stakes-ready in Oaklawn Park win

Bob Baffert’s barn already features a number of top stakes runners in the older male dirt division – Improbable, McKinzie, Mucho Gusto and soon to be Maximum Security, to name a few.

Will Dessman be the next to join those ranks? He looked ready to take the next step Saturday, making a late move past Everfast to win an allowance event at Oaklawn Park.

The 4-year-old Dessman earned the second victory of a career that’s featured only five starts to this point.

A Union Rags colt, he won on debut last January at Santa Anita Park, was second a month later in the San Vicente Stakes (G2) and runner-up again last March in an allowance optional claiming event at Oaklawn. Dessman then was out of the starting gates for more than 11 months before reappearing Feb. 29 with a second-place effort in a Santa Anita allowance optional claiming race.

Now the Baffert trainee is back in the winner’s circle after another ship from California to Arkansas. Owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum, the Florida-bred Dessman figures to move into stakes company for the Hall of Fame conditioner once racing resumes on the West Coast.

Dessman moved alongside Soaring Bird picked off Soaring Bird coming off the turn, then got by Wild Popit as that one faded in the stretch. The favorite then had just enough room to run down Everfast and score by a neck, returning $4.80. The final time was 1:37.34.

Everfast, the 2019 Preakness Stakes runner-up, was second in his debut for trainer Jack Sisterson. Locally Owned got up for third.