HOT SPRINGS -- The upcoming weekend of racing at Oaklawn will feature three stakes races Saturday and three more Sunday, each in part a happenstance of eight racing days and 11 training days missed at the track because of a mixture of ice and record snowfall.
Perhaps no stakes series was more significantly affected than what has long been any racetrack's most popular. The Grade III $750,000 1 1/16-mile Southwest Stakes for 3-year-old horses, originally scheduled for Feb. 15, is the second of four races at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort that offer Kentucky Derby qualifying points. It is now scheduled for Saturday.
The Southwest and three other stakes were postponed because of ice and snow from the President's Day weekend card and originally rescheduled for the following weekend of Feb. 20-21.
Separate days and nights of snowfall through that weekend and the following two days dropped a foot or more of snow on Hot Springs. Sub-freezing temperatures continued into the following weekend, thus canceling another four days of racing. In total, five stakes were postponed until this weekend, including the Southwest, Grade III $600,000 1 1/16-mile Razorback Handicap for horses 4-years-old and up, and the Grade III $250,000 1 1/16-mile Bayakoa Stakes for fillies and mares 4 years old and up.
The Southwest and Razorback are scheduled for Saturday, two weeks before the Grade II $1 million 1 1/16-mile Rebel Stakes, Oaklawn's third Kentucky Derby qualifying race.
Though a relatively short of field seven is entered in the Southwest, Oaklawn racing secretary Pat Pope said the overall quality of those seven horses affected the field size more than the race's 12-day postponement.
"It was never going to be a large field," Pope said. "When you heard the Breeders' Cup winner was running and the Breeders' Cup favorite was running, we knew all along it wasn't going to be a large field."
Southwest entrant Essential Quality, trained by Brad Cox, won the Grade I 1 1/16-mile Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., on Nov. 6. Southwest entrant Jackie's Warrior, from the barn of Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, finished fourth in Breeders' Cup Juvenile as the 4-5 favorite.
Cox earned the Eclipse Award as the 202o U.S. trainer of the year.
Southwest entrants have commonly raced in the Rebel when the races were scheduled and run 26 days to four weeks apart, but with the two-week gap between the races this season, it is doubtful any will.
"I can't tell you none of these will come back in two weeks because it has been done," Pope said. "It's the new norm in the industry where people say, 'Oh, I can't run back less than three, four, five, six, seven weeks.' That's the new norm."
Pope said another limiting factor for the Southwest field size, and perhaps for the Rebel, is the prevalence of other Kentucky Derby qualifiers on the race's new calendar spot.
The John Battaglia Memorial Stakes at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky, is scheduled for today, and the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., is set for Saturday. Three other qualifying races are scheduled for U.S. tracks next weekend and the Rebel a week later.
"It's all the same," Pope said. "Three-year-olds going a route of ground for a large purse."
In total, Oaklawn-based horses missed 11 days of on-track training because of the severe winter weather. This caused connections of heretofore probable Southwest entrant Keepmeinmind to wait for the Rebel Stakes.
Trainer Robertino Diodoro said Keepmeinmind's next start will likely come in the Rebel. Whereas the Southwest offers a total of 17 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, with 10 to the winner, the Rebel offers 85. The winner earns 50, enough to qualify for any Derby since the points system was put into place before the 2013 season. Diodoro said the Rebel points were a secondary factor in his decision to wait for Keepmeinmind's next start.
"That was a factor for us," Diodoro said.
Oaklawn weekend stakes schedule
SATURDAY
RACE 7 Grade III $600,000 Razorback Handicap, 1 1/16 miles, 4-year-olds and up
RACE 8 $200,000 Spring Fever Stakes, 5 1/2 furlongs, older fillies and mares
RACE 10 Grade III $750,000 Southwest Stakes, 1 1/16 miles, 3-year-olds
SUNDAY
RACE 6 $150,000 Dixie Bell Stakes, 6 furlongs, 3-year-old fillies
RACE 8 $150,000 Downthedustyroad Stakes, 6 furlongs, Arkansas-bred fillies
RACE 9 Grade III $250,000 Bayakoa Stakes, 1 1/16 miles, older fillies and mares