Oaklawn news: Unique Bella a go for Apple Blossom Handicap
Champion Unique Bella, unbeaten Magnum Moon and Grade 1 winner and millionaire Accelerate are among the horses scheduled to run during the Racing Festival of the South, Oaklawn’s annual stakes bonanza to close the meeting.
Unique Bella, the country’s champion female sprinter of 2017, is scheduled to run in Friday’s $700,000 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) for older fillies and mares. Unique Bella, who is based in Southern California with Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, has won 7 of 9 starts overall, including the $200,000 Santa Maria Stakes (G2) Feb. 10 at Santa Anita in her last start.
Unique Bella was assigned top weight of 123 pounds for the 1 1/16-mile Apple Blossom.
In a final breeze Sunday, she clocked a bullet half mile at Santa Anita Park.
Magnum Moon can strengthen his credentials as a leading Kentucky Derby candidate in Saturday’s $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1) for trainer Todd Pletcher. Based this winter in south Florida, Magnum Moon remained unbeaten in three starts with a 3 ½-length victory in the $900,000 Rebel Stakes (G2) March 17, the final major local prep for the Arkansas Derby.
Accelerate is the scheduled headliner for Saturday’s $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap (G2) for older horses. Trained by John Sadler, Accelerate became a millionaire with a 5 ½-length victory in the $600,000 Santa Anita Handicap (G1) March 10 at Santa Anita in his last start.
Accelerate was assigned top weight of 123 pounds for the 1 1/8-mile Oaklawn Handicap.
Post positions for the Apple Blossom Handicap will be drawn Tuesday. Post positions for the Arkansas Derby and Oaklawn Handicap will be drawn Wednesday. Other Festival races include Friday’s $400,000 Fantasy Stakes (G3) for 3-year-old fillies and Saturday’s $400,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) for older horses.
Early probables for each race, according to the Oaklawn racing department:
Fantasy (Amy’s Challenge, Cosmic Burst, Harbor Lights, Sassy Sienna, Stronger Than Ever and Tahoe Dream); Apple Blossom (Farrell, Fuhriously Kissed, Streamline, Tiger Moth, Unbridled Mo and Unique Bella); Count Fleet (City of Light, Edwards Going Left, Favorite Tale, Imma Bling, Ivan Fallunovalot, Smart Spree, Whitmore, Wings Locked Up and Wynn Time); Oaklawn Handicap (Accelerate, Blueridge Traveler, Colonelsdarktemper, Fear the Cowboy, Hawaakom, Hedge Fund, Inside Straight, Lookin At Lee and Sonneteer); Arkansas Derby (Beautiful Shot, Combatant, Dream Baby Dream, Magnum Moon, Quip, Solomini and Tenfold).
Pulling Rank
Colonelsdarktemper will make his next start in Saturday’s $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap (G2) for older horses, trainer Jinks Fires of Hot Springs said Sunday morning.
Owned by auto racing legend A.J. Foyt, Colonelsdarktemper will come into the 1 1/8-mile Oaklawn Handicap with only one start this year, owing to a slower-than-expected recovery from a stress fracture in a shin and poor weather earlier in the year, Fires said.
Colonelsdarktemper finished second in a March 11 allowance/optional claimer, which was the 4-year-old debut for the Colonel John colt. Fires said in a “perfect world,” Colonelsdarktemper would have had another prep for the Oaklawn Handicap.
“That’s what I would have liked, but unfortunately there wasn’t time to get another race,” Fires said. “Got late getting him back and then we got that bad weather, so I backed off.”
Fires said Colonelsdarktemper was injured during a fourth-place finish in the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby (G3) Sept. 24 at Remington Park.
The well-traveled Colonelsdarktemper made 10 starts last year, winning his career debut at Oaklawn, an allowance race at Churchill Downs and the $750,000 West Virginia Derby (G3) at Mountaineer, and bankrolling $710,035.
Colonelsdarktemper completed major preparations for the Oaklawn Handicap by recording a 5-furlong bullet workout (1:00.80) after the renovation break Sundaymorning. The track was rated muddy.
Seeing Double
Will VanMeter recorded his first career training double Saturday, winning the second race with favored Clarista ($4.40) for major client John Ed Anthony of Hot Springs and the eighth race with Nottoway, a 3-year-old Twirling Candy gelding he co-owns with the Estate of Tommy Ligon.
VanMeter said Saturday’s results helped erase some of the frustration from a number of near-misses earlier in the meet. The trainer entered Saturday with only two victories from 36 starts, but he had nine seconds and seven thirds.
“It’s funny,” VanMeter said before training hours Sunday morning. “On the eve of the meet, I felt, looking at the horses and how they were training, I felt we were really going to kind of have a breakout meet and it just never really materialized. The horses have trained fantastic all meet, they just haven’t … I felt as confident yesterday as I have about a lot of the horses we’ve run.”
A former assistant under Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, VanMeter, 34, went out his own in 2013 and saddled his first winner, Pearl Turn, March 14, 2014, at Oaklawn.
According to Equibase, racing’s official data gathering organization, VanMeter has 32 victories and purse earnings of $1,649,292 in his career. VanMeter’s biggest career victory to date came with Trace Creek, an Anthony homebred, in the $100,000 Hanshin Cup Stakes in 2016 at Arlington Park.
VanMeter said Plainsman, also owned by Anthony, is under consideration for Saturday’s $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1), the $150,000 Northern Spur Stakes and an allowance race. Plainsman was a Jan. 20 maiden winner.