Smarty Jones Stakes

Dual Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse's two projected starters for the GII Rebel Stakes for 3-year-olds had their final workouts for the Mar. 1 race on a chilly Friday morning at Oaklawn, the track said in a press release on Friday. With Kylee Jordan up, Strategic Risk (Noble Bird) breezed five furlongs in 1:00 just after the track opened for training. Following a surface renovation break roughly two hours later, Silent Tactic (Tacitus) covered a half-mile in :47.40 under two-time Oaklawn riding champion Cristian Torres. The track was fast....

The Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs doesn't exactly rank high up on anyone's list of races on the road to the GI Kentucky Derby. But the seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds does offer a purse of $125,000 and is a stepping stone to the $400,000 GIII Tampa Bay Derby, the track's signature race. Expectations for the Pasco are modest, but not so modest that anyone could have predicted that this year's race, scheduled to be run last Saturday, would not fill. Only two horses entered the race. If the start...

Strategic Risk (Noble Bird) rolled into town from Florida, and not only topped the exacta in the Smarty Jones Stakes for his connections, but also took home Kentucky Derby points in the process. Dominating a maiden field at first asking June 7 at Gulfstream Park against fellow Florida-breds, he missed the board in back to back graded starts at Saratoga, but bounced back to run third Oct. 18 in the Florida Sired Affirmed Stakes. Building on that effort, and at his first trip at 1 1/16-miles over the main track...

Gary and Mary West's homebred Rancho Santa Fe (Tapit), unbeaten in a pair of lifetime starts, is expected to make his stakes debut in the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park Saturday. The 3-year-old colt debuted with a victory going one mile at Ellis Park Aug. 24 and added a 1 1/16-mile allowance win at Keeneland Oct. 11. He had four published works at Payson Park in December, most recently going five furlongs in 1:02.00 (2/11) Dec. 27. "He's doing great," trainer Brad Cox said. "His last work at Payson...

Tip Top Thomas burst onto the scene as a 2-year-old, earning a 'TDN Rising Star' badge at Saratoga in late August last season before running a game second to Chancer McPatrick (McKinzie) in the GI Champagne Stakes to cap his 2024 campaign. Shelved for most of the winter and spring, the son of Volatile return to the races at Keeneland with a fourth facing allowance horses in April before getting back in the winner's circle in his last two starts including a gate to wire track record-setting win in the...

Multiple graded winner Fulsome (Into Mischief--Flourish, by Distorted Humor) was represented by his first Kentucky-bred foal when Addadore (Star Guitar) produced a filly Jan. 23. The foal was bred by Todd and Angie Lewis's Westbrook Stables and foaled in Nicholasville. "This filly hit the ground running; stood in 34 minutes," said Todd Lewis. "Plenty of bone and a good top line." Westbrook Stables bred Soul of an Angel (Atreides), winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, who was honored with the Eclipse Award as champion female sprinter...

Prep season for the GI Kentucky Derby is still in its earliest stages, but a couple of races over the weekend gave us some things to get excited about. It appears, in GII San Vicente Stakes winner Barnes (Into Mischief), we have an early Derby favorite that could give Bob Baffert his first official Derby win since Authentic (Into Mischief) in 2020 in what would be his return to America's most famous race after the Churchill ban. Sold for $3.2 million at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga, this could be a special horse....

With plenty of tasty birthday cake in the offing, a cadre of newly-minted 3-year-old colts have blown out their candles and are ready for stakes action across four tracks on Saturday. Leading the charge at Santa Anita is the GII San Vicente Stakes, which is the annual renewal of the seven furlong dirt race. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has won 13 prior editions, including last year with Muth (Good Magic). In customary fashion, the Hall of Famer enters a pair of runners in Barnes (Into Mischief) and Romanesque...

Informed Patriot (Hard Spun), third in Saturday's GIII Indiana Derby, has been added to the line-up for the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale, which will be held Monday in Lexington. He is catalogued as hip 523 and consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent. Third in last year's GIII Street Sense Stakes, Informed Patriot opened his sophomore campaign with a third-place effort in the Smarty Jones Stakes. He won the Bathhouse Row Stakes at Oaklawn in April. Racing for J. Kirk and Judy Robison and trained by...

To get his new business off the ground--or at least out of the basement of his house in Iowa--Dennis Albaugh took out an SBA loan of $10,000. "Against the house," he says. "Had to talk my wife into that. Then I bought an old tanker and, my first trip out, I loaded up with chemicals headed for South Dakota. And all the way up there I'm thinking, 'Hey, this is really a good truck.' It just runs a little better all the way up. I get there, I get out,...

Albaugh Family Stables' Catching Freedom, the 8-5 favorite, kicked off his sophomore campaign in style with a late-running victory in the Smarty Jones S. at Oaklawn Park Monday. Favored for his third-straight start, the bay colt was unhurried early Monday and settled well off the pace behind fractions of :23.02 and :47.01. He inched closer along the rail on the far turn, tipped out for running room approaching the stretch and rolled up four wide into the lane. Just to his inside off the turn was Just Steel (Justify), who...

Bob Baffert has a chance to sweep Saturday's GI Kentucky Derby preps as he saddles three of the five runners in Santa Anita's GII San Vicente and the morning-line favorite in Oaklawn's GIII Southwest S. in Newgrange (Violence). A debut winner at Del Mar Nov. 28, the dark bay wired Santa Anita's GIII Sham S. next out Jan. 1, earning a field's-best 88 Beyer Speed Figure. Smarty Jones S. top three Dash Attack (Munnings), Barber Road (Race Day) and Ignitis (Nyquist) rematch here. Opening his account with a 1 1/4-length...