O'Neill Hoping for Another Shocker

Irap | Coady Photography

Trainer Doug O'Neill, who upset last weekend's GII Toyota Blue Grass S. with Reddam Racing's Irap (Tiznow), will look for another longshot victory on the Triple Crown trail when he sends Reddam's stakes-placed Rockin Rudy (Midshipman) postward in Saturday's GI Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park.

Rockin Rudy, purchased by Dickman's Legacy Ranch for $100,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, began his career with a romping 11 1/2-length victory versus $80,000 maiden claimers while sprinting over the main track at Del Mar for trainer John Brocklebank last August.

“He's a horse that won very impressively and there was word on the street he was for sale, so we looked into him and then didn't get a deal done,” O'Neill explained. “Then as it turned out, he was turned out for a little body soreness and immaturity stuff.”

The deal to purchase the colt eventually came about and Rockin Rudy has been second in a pair of outings in Reddam's colors, both over Santa Anita's downhill turf course. He was runner-up behind Conquest Farenheit (Scat Daddy) in the Feb. 20 Baffle S. and most recently battled to a narrowly beaten second in a Mar. 24 optional claimer.

“It's not every day to go from 6 1/2 to nine furlongs, but it's possible and we're going to give it a roll,” O'Neill said.

He continued, “One of the things I enjoy about training is letting horses train along good and let them put their feet where they want to put them, and we put good air into them. I really think, even though 6 ½ seems like a far cry from a mile and an eighth, it was really a hard-run race, especially a horse with speed. You're burning gate to wire.”

O'Neill took blinkers off Irap before his Blue Grass win and the trainer will try the same move with Rockin Rudy.

“With the blinkers on, it's all focused on gate to wire, so he needs to chill out a little bit,” O'Neill said. “Blinkers off does it.”

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