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Jockey David Cabrera In Pursuit Of First Oaklawn Riding Title

Agent Joe Santos has been on the backside this week at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., laying the groundwork for David Cabrera's chase to win his first local riding title after finishing second to perennial champion Ricardo Santana Jr. in 2018 and 2021.

“That's what we're here for,” Santos said during training hours Monday morning. “That's our goal again this year. We're here to try to win the meet. Every meet we go to, that's kind of a goal. That's what he does. He wins a lot of races. We're always trying to win more than anybody else.”

Cabrera is now based at Remington Park in Oklahoma City, Okla., where he is the runaway leader in the standings. Although Remington's meet ends Dec. 17, Santos said Cabrera only will miss one racing day next month at Oaklawn, which opens its expanded 66-day live season Dec. 3. Oaklawn's earliest meet opening in history will feature 10 December racing dates, all Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Santos said Cabrera will ride at Remington on Oaklawn's off days. The only racing day Cabrera is scheduled to miss at Oaklawn is Dec. 17, when the jockey returns to Remington for its stakes-heavy card, highlighted by the $400,000 Springboard Mile for 2-year-olds.

“We've got the favorite in all five stakes, it looks like,” Santos said. “Can't miss that.”

Following a one-year absence, Cabrera set single-season personal local bests for mounts (377), victories (62), and purse earnings ($3,395,649) during the 2021 Oaklawn meeting that ended in May. Cabrera won two stakes – $150,000 King Cotton for older sprinters aboard Boldor for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen and the $150,000 Rainbow Miss for 3-year-old Arkansas-bred female sprinters aboard Hillary G. The Rainbow Miss was the first career stakes victory for trainer Tommy Vance of Hot Springs.

Cabrera then finished second-leading rider at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas, and had 83 victories at Remington Park, through Thursday, to surpass 1,500 for his career. Cabrera also cracked $7 million in purse earnings for the first time in his career in 2021.

“He knows how to win,” Santos said.

Coinciding with Oaklawn's December opening is a truncated race week, with racing normally conducted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in 2021-2022. Normally, Cabrera is among the most active jockeys on the grounds.

“Honestly, with the way our business is set up, it seems like a good thing for us,” Santos said. “Thus far, we've got a lot of business with a lot of people we're hoping to ride for and given us some calls. I'm not necessarily sure how it plays out for everybody else, but from our standpoint, I think it's looking pretty good.”

Santos said he believes Cabrera's prominent training clients will include Ron Moquett of Hot Springs, Kenny McPeek, and John Ortiz.

“David, he's never really angered anyone that I know of, so I feel like we can ride for everybody,” Santos said. “That's kind of the goal. Just to try to ride the right horses in the right races and try to keep everybody happy. They know that they're going to get effort from him. From me, I'm going to try and be as prepared as possible on knowing what's going in what races. Hopefully, it just leads to a lot of success.”

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Cabrera rode 43 winners at Oaklawn in 2018, his Hot Springs debut, and 12 in 2019 before wintering at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston, Texas in 2020.

Santos also will represent 2021 Prairie Meadows leading apprentice Kylee Jordan during the 2021-2022 Oaklawn meeting and said he hopes to lure another journeyman, a nationally prominent rider, to Hot Springs in January.

Cabrera and Jordan are among seven jockeys across the country Santos represents in late November.

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Champion Whitmore Returns To Oaklawn With New Goal In Mind

Whitmore won Oaklawn's Hot Springs Stakes for older sprinters a record four times and if the feisty 8-year-old gelding cooperates, he'll be leading the field again in 2022.

Whitmore has returned to Arkansas, but instead of preparing for the Hot Springs, a race he won in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, the now-retired Eclipse Award winner is about to take baby steps toward a possible second career as a stable pony for Ron Moquett, who trained the gelding and campaigned him in partnership with Robert LaPenta and Head of Plains Partners (Sol Kumin).

“Our ultimate goal, right now, the short-term goal, is have him lead the post parade for the Whitmore,” Moquett said Tuesday morning. “That's our goal, Doesn't mean we're going to do it. It just means we're trying.”

Oaklawn announced in early September that it had renamed the Hot Springs to honor Whitmore, the 2020 Breeders' Cup Sprint winner, the country's champion male sprinter of 2020 and among the most popular and successful horses in Oaklawn history. The inaugural $200,000 Whitmore Stakes is March 19, a centerpiece of “Whitmore Day.” Oaklawn also renamed the Count Fleet barn, Whitmore's longtime home in Hot Springs, after the gelding.

Whitmore was retired after suffering a leg injury during a fifth-place finish in the $600,000 Forego Stakes (G1) Aug. 28 at Saratoga. A chestnut son of Pleasantly Perfect, Whitmore bankrolled $4,502,350 – 88^th in North American history through Tuesday – after winning 15 of 43 starts. Much of Whitmore's best work came at Oaklawn, where he compiled a 9-6-1 record from 16 starts and earned $1,752,600. Whitmore also won Oaklawn's signature race for older sprinters, $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3), a record three times (2017, 2018 and 2020). Swift Ruler, a local star during the 1960s, is the only other horse in Oaklawn history with seven career stakes victories.

Moquett said Whitmore was sent to Rebecca Maker's equine rehabilitation and breaking facility in Kentucky following the Forego. Whitmore has normally decompressed there the last several years before returning to Oaklawn – his winter home at every meeting since 2016 – to begin preparing for a new campaign.

Moquett said his wife/assistant Laura will be trying to re-train Whitmore for pony work, which encompasses escorting horses to and from the track during morning training hours. She was Whitmore's regular exercise rider.

“I have no idea,” Ron Moquett said, when asked if he believed Whitmore knows he's not running again. “This is kind of the same schedule he's been on. We're hoping he does. We're going to feed him different. Obviously, he's going to leave every day and come back.”

Moquett said Whitmore could eventually occupy his same stall in the renamed barn and be re-trained at Oaklawn or sent to more tranquil surroundings at the track's satellite training center about 25 miles east of Hot Springs, where the trainer keeps horses. Moquett said Whitmore left Kentucky Tuesday and is now at the training center. The gelding will return to Oaklawn after Thanksgiving, Moquett said.

Whitmore was a noted bad actor at two and gelded before his first start. Although he mellowed with age, Whitmore would buck and kick before loading into the starting gate for some races.

“We couldn't get him around the track as a 2-year-old, so he's changed a whole lot,” Laura Moquett said the morning after Whitmore won the 2020 Count Fleet. “We can actually train him now. He's softened his edges a little. He still has the tattoos of the barbed wire around his arm, but he has like a heart and mom on there as well now.”

Ron Moquett said Whitmore will now be going back to school, with his wife as tutor.

“Go out there and watch training,” he said. “Ride up there and sit there at the end of the day, when nobody's around, and watch a couple of horses train and then come back home. After a while, the hope is, he understands that this is what I do. I don't go train. Not go around kicking stuff. Laura will be on him. Laura's horse.”

Another former Ron Moquett trainee, Meanbone, successfully transitioned to pony work following his final career start in July 2020. Meanbone, a 9-year-old Silver Train gelding, worked as Moquett's stable pony during the 2021 Oaklawn meeting.

“We're just going to start like we did Meanbone,” Ron Moquett said. “Remember, he's a pony now and these other horses that we've re-homed and made ponies – we're going to try to do it with Whitmore and, hopefully, it sticks.”

Moquett said his wife would be aboard Whitmore to lead the post parade for the Whitmore Stakes, which is the final major local prep for the $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) April 16. Whitmore ran second in both 6-furlong races in 2021.

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Green Returns To Oaklawn In 2022 To Build On 2021 Success

Trainer Aidan Green is back at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., to try and build on a breakout 2021 meeting, when her modest stable produced nine victories, seven seconds, and nine thirds from 42 starters and amassed $347,560 in purse earnings.

Green's 2021 Oaklawn meet highlights included her first career victory recognized by Equibase, racing's official data gathering organization, and first career stakes victory when Blame J D captured the $150,000 Rainbow for 3-year-old Arkansas-bred sprinters in the waning days of the live season.

“Kicked back a little after that, but not too much,” said Green, who is raising three small children near Oaklawn with her husband/assistant, Ike. “Breaking babies and we've got broodmares and everything. Got rid of some horses. So, I'll sit around 10 or 12, just like always. I've been dropping like crazy at Churchill. I've got owners wanting to get horses, and new guys coming in, and we just keep getting outshook every time.”

Green said trying to claim horses at Churchill Downs has been fueled, in part, because of her success last season at Oaklawn, adding she's picked up a handful of new owners in advance of opening day, Dec. 3, including Dennis Pohl of St. Louis.

“I've gotten some new people since then, and people that want in, so that's exciting,” Green said. “Dennis has had horses with other trainers. He called and said he wanted someone with a smaller stable, where they get real attention. We've been trying to get some claimed for him.”

Green's best horse to date, Blame J D, was turned out following the 2021 Oaklawn meeting (five starts, including a state-bred maiden special weights sprint) and just resumed preparing for a 2022 campaign, Ike Green said.

The Greens formerly worked as assistants under 2020 Oaklawn training champion Robertino Diodoro. Aidan Green's first official starter recognized by Equibase was Feb. 14, 2020, at Oaklawn. Ike Green has 98 career training victories, the last coming in 2014, according to Equibase. All nine of Aidan Green's career victories recognized by Equibase have come at Oaklawn.

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Canchari’s Pursuit Of 1,000th Win Will Continue At Oaklawn

Alex Canchari's chase to a career milestone will apparently come at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark.

Canchari said that he plans to ride the entire Oaklawn meet (Dec. 3-May 8) in pursuit of his 1,000th career victory. Canchari has 981 career victories, according to Equibase, racing's official data gathering organization, including 198 at Oaklawn.

“I'm just going to try to work hard and hopefully have a good meet,” Canchari said during training hours Friday morning at Oaklawn. “I'll try to ride a little bit for everybody.”

Canchari, 27, said he arrived Thursday in Hot Springs after riding the past month at Mahoning Valley in Ohio. Despite missing the first month of the 2021 Oaklawn meeting – the jockey was riding at Turfway Park – Canchari amassed $621,716 in purse earnings, the bulk coming from victories aboard Carlos L. in the $150,000 Temperence Hill Stakes for older horses at 1 ½ miles and aboard Sir Wellington in the $150,000 Gazebo Stakes for 3-year-old sprinters. Both victories were for Canchari's longtime client, trainer Mac Robertson.

Canchari has ridden regularly at Oaklawn since 2012 and set a single-season personal best in Hot Springs with 45 victories in 2017, when he tied for third in the standings. Canchari has nine stakes victories and $8,370,423 in purse earnings in his Oaklawn career.

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