Lightly raced Lawlessness will make his two-turn and stakes debut in the $150,000 Smarty Jones for 3-year-olds Jan. 22 at Oaklawn, trainer Ingrid Mason said Tuesday afternoon.
Post positions for the one-mile Smarty Jones, Oaklawn's first of four Kentucky Derby points races, will be drawn Friday. The race will offer 17 points (10-4-2-1) to the top four finishes, respectively, toward starting eligibility for the Kentucky Derby.
A son of Congrats, Lawlessness compiled a 1-0-2 record from three starts last year. Lawlessness broke his maiden Oct. 4 at Hawthorne and finished third in his last start – an entry-level allowance sprint – Oct. 30 at Hawthorne.
“He's named appropriately because he's a little turkey,” Mason said. “He's a little screwball.”
Lawlessness was purchased for just $14,000 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training by Mike Waters, Mason's significant other. Mason said she picked out the colt, who covered a quarter-mile in 21.80 in his under tack preview work. Mason and Waters teamed to finish seventh in last year's Smarty Jones with Lykan, another son of Congrats who was making his two-turn and stakes debut.
“It's funny,” Mason said. “They actually are a lot alike, as far as personality, him and Lykan, and they're by the same sire. The mothers are different, obviously. You don't really call them brothers, but they have a lot of the same personality. Congrats kind of stamps out his babies most of the time, it seems. I think Lawlessness, at this stage, is more talented than Lykan was, and I think the longer he goes the better he's going to be. I think the distance for him, the mile, is going to suit him really, really well.”
Following the Smarty Jones, Lykan returned to sprints and was a first-level allowance winner at Oaklawn before finishing third in its $90,000 Gazebo Stakes and $100,000 Bachelor Stakes.
Mason said David Cohen, Oaklawn's leading jockey in 2019, will ride Lawlessness for the first time in the Smarty Jones. Another locally based horse pointing for the Smarty Jones is Caddo River, a powerful Nov. 15 Churchill Downs maiden special weights graduate for trainer Brad Cox.
Oaklawn's Kentucky Derby points series continues with the $750,000 Southwest Stakes (G3) Feb. 15, $1 million Rebel Stakes (G2) March 13 and the $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1) April 10. The Smarty Jones closed Jan. 7 with 96 nominations, the bulk part of an expanded early bird date linked to the other three Kentucky Derby points races for the first time.
The 2020 Smarty Jones closed with 51 nominations.
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