The Breeders’ Cup Classic is often thought of as the All-Star race for American horse racing, and for good reason. With its massive purse and enormous prestige, it’s designed to bring together the top horses at the end of each season.
Tag: Racing
Caddo River Rolls to Smarty Jones Stakes Runaway
Following the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Brad Cox had a clear top-10 prospect for the 2021 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve with probable champion 2-year-old male Essential Quality. Less than a month into the New Year, it would appear he now has two Derby contenders.
Refreshed Grade 1 Winner Wicked Whisper Kicking Off 2021 Campaign In Oaklawn’s Pippin Stakes
Wicked Whisper was poised for a championship in the fall of 2019. Now, it's a career reboot and step one in 2021 is the $150,000 Pippin Stakes for older fillies and mares at 1 mile Saturday at Oaklawn.
Probable post time for the Pippin, the eighth of nine races, is 4:47 p.m. (Central). First post for the second of 57 scheduled race days is 1 p.m. (Central).
Wicked Whisper is the slight 3-1 program favorite for the Pippin, which drew a field of 12 and is Oaklawn's first of three preps for the $1 million Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) April 17. The series continues with the $250,000 Bayakoa Stakes (G3) Feb. 15 and the $350,000 Azeri Stakes (G2) March 13.
Wicked Whisper was among the country's top 2-year-old fillies of 2019 for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen and owners Alex and JoAnn Lieblong of Conway, Ark. She was a front-running 6 ¼-length winner of her career debut at Saratoga and a front-running 2 ¾-length winner of her next start, the $400,000 Frizette Stakes (G1), at Belmont Park. Wicked Whisper's unbeaten record and hopes for an Eclipse Award crashed with a fifth-place finish in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at Santa Anita, a 1 1/16-mile race that marked her two-turn debut.
Sandwiched around minor injury (splint bone) and minor illness, Wicked Wisper captured 1 of 4 starts last year and was withdrawn from Fasig-Tipton's November Sale (Nov. 8) – she was entered as a racing or broodmare prospect – to get another shot for the same racing team in 2021.
“Not really,” Alex Lieblong said, when asked if he seriously considered retiring Wicked Whisper. “He (Asmussen) knew to raise his hand at any point where he thought we should and he didn't. She had a real busy period there for a while, so we thought, 'OK, let's back off her for a while and see what can shape up at Oaklawn.' We did have her in the November Sale, just in case something did show up physically with her during that time. Nothing ever showed up physically, so that gave us a little bit of time for, hopefully, Steve to work his magic and stretch her out.”
Wicked Whisper's final two starts last year were at 6 furlongs. She won the $150,000 Miss Preakness Stakes (G3) Oct. 3 at Pimlico and finished an even fifth in the $125,000 Fort Springs Stakes Nov. 7 at Keeneland. Wicked Whisper had been scheduled to make her 3-year-old debut in the $300,000 Honeybee Stakes (G3) last March at Oaklawn, but spiked a fever approximately a week before the race, Lieblong said, and her first start didn't come until early July.
“You just couldn't make it up,” said Lieblong, chairman of the Arkansas Racing Commission. “But one thing I've learned in this business is it's got several ways to bite you.”
Wicked Whisper has had five published workouts at Oaklawn since Dec. 20 in advance of her 4-year-old debut. From the first crop of Grade 1 winner Liam's Map, Wicked Whisper was purchased for $500,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Wicked Whisper is a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Point of Honor, who finished third in the $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) for older fillies and mares last year at Oaklawn. The Lieblongs were Oaklawn's third-leading owners in 2020.
The 7-2 second choice in the program is Istan Council, who is seeking her first career stakes victory. Istan Council was a 2019 allowance winner at Oaklawn, finished third in the $100,000 Groupie Doll Stakes Aug. 9 at Ellis Park and endured a brutal trip finishing second, beaten a head, in the $75,000 She's All In Stakes at a mile and 70 yards Dec. 18 at Remington Park. Daily Racing Form short comments from Istan Council's past performance running line for the She's All In said the 5-year-old mare lacked room until late, “best.”
“I thought it was one of the very few times you see in the Racing Form where the horse that ran second was much the best,” Jones said.
Other contenders include the Brad Cox-trained duo of Vault and Getridofwhatailesu and Our Super Freak. All are 6-1 in the program. Vault ran sixth in the $263,000 Molly Pitcher Stakes (G3) July 18 at Monmouth Park in her last start. Getridofwhatailesu, unraced since last March, has never run in a stakes race, but has won two of her last three starts. Our Super Freak ran second in last year's Molly Pitcher for trainer Cherie DeVaux, a former assistant to four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown. DeVaux has never started a horse at Oaklawn.
The projected Pippin field from the rail out: Vault, Florent Geroux to ride, 115 pounds, 6-1; Figure It Out, Francisco Arrieta, 119, 12-1; Getridofwhatailesu, Joe Rocco Jr., 119, 6-1; Sara Sea, Fernando De La Cruz, 115, 30-1; Chance to Shine, Ken Tohill, 115, 10-1; Istan Council, Joe Talamo, 115, 7-2; Wicked Whisper, Ricardo Santana Jr., 122, 3-1; Blessed Again, Terry Thompson, 119, 30-1; Regal Beauty, Martin Garcia, 115, 8-1; His Glory, David Cabrera, 117, 12-1; Graysonsmacho Gal, Ramon Vazquez, 115, 15-1; and Our Super Freak, David Cohen, 115, 6-1.
Jones won last year's Pippin with the recently retired Whoa Nellie.
The post Refreshed Grade 1 Winner Wicked Whisper Kicking Off 2021 Campaign In Oaklawn’s Pippin Stakes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
Love Machine: $32,000 Claim Hunka Burning Love Carrying Momentum Into Oaklawn’s Fifth Season Stakes
Among the best claims of the 2020 Oaklawn meeting occurred last April when owner/trainer Karl Broberg took Hunka Burning Love for $32,000 out of a seventh-place finish in a 1 1/8-mile event for older horses. Broberg didn't have to shake for the gelding, either.
All Hunka Burning Love has done in 10 starts for Broberg is win eight races, including four stakes, by a combined margin of more than 43 lengths and bankroll $259,199. Broberg had previously claimed Hunka Burning Love for $50,000 in September 2019 at Churchill Downs, but lost him for $62,500 less than a month later when, in his only start for the trainer, the gelding beat just one horse in an allowance/optional claiming sprint at Keeneland.
Clearly, Broberg hit a home run after taking his second swing at Hunka Burning Love.
“I wish I could say I had some grand master plan,” Broberg said. “I just knew from the previous claim that the horse was sound and that he had speed and it was at the end of Oaklawn. I'm like, 'I know he's going to fit somewhere.' He still had his non-winner of two other than (allowance) condition at the time, so I didn't have any grand plan other than thinking there were going to be much softer spots ahead for him.”
Well-spotted regionally, Hunka Burning Love dominated in two starts at Will Rogers Downs in Oklahoma before claiming the $75,000 Lone Star Mile in June at Lone Star Park in Texas, $75,000 Governor's Cup Stakes in August at Remington Park in Oklahoma, $100,000 Delta Mile Stakes Nov. 28 at Delta Downs in Louisiana and the $60,000 Jeffrey A. Hawk Memorial Stakes Dec. 18 at Remington Park in his last start.
Hunka Burning Love, North America's co-winningest horse in 2020, is scheduled to begin his 2021 campaign in Saturday's $150,000 Fifth Season Stakes at Oaklawn.
Hunka Burning Love began his racing career for the high-profile connections of trainer Mike Maker and owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey, competing against top runners like McCraken, Warrior's Club, Cool Arrow, Uncontested, Chief Know It All and Guest Suite before falling down the class ladder. Guest Suite won the first division of the 2020 Fifth Season.
“He's been a solid horse throughout his career,” Broberg said. “He's got heart. He's just professional. The thing that's funny about him is after every race, he doesn't pull up. He wants to run right back around again, which is funny for the jocks on him for the first time.”
Broberg, the country's perennial leader in victories, said the Fifth Season will be Hunka Burning Love's biggest challenge since he re-claimed the 7-year-old son of super sire Into Mischief.
The 1-mile Fifth Season also attracted millionaire Grade 1 winner Combatant, Grade 3 winner Night Ops, second-division 2020 Fifth Season winner Pioneer Spirit and Silver State, a sharp winner of his last two starts. Hunka Burning Love, 6-1 on the morning line, is winless in four Oaklawn starts.
“If this fails, then I'm going to give him a break for a few months and we'll come back elsewhere,” Broberg said.
Hunka Burning Love has a 16-4-6 mark from 46 lifetime starts and earnings of $517,329.
The post Love Machine: $32,000 Claim Hunka Burning Love Carrying Momentum Into Oaklawn’s Fifth Season Stakes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
