Experts in Sports and Gambling
For reasons ranging from handicapping to running style to history, the Arkansas Derby is the perfect last stop on the Kentucky Derby Trail. You could dial up a better finishing prep race. But you’d second-guess yourself mid-thought and wind up back at Oaklawn Park. Yes, Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile Arkansas Derby […]
The field for Saturday’s Listed Stakes Oaklawn Mile brings three familiar candidates with eclectic stories of redemption to a race that punches far above its weight class. There’s By My Standards, who makes his 2021 debut as the 5/2 favorite at the site of one of his 2020 victories. Hard […]
You know Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale as the Moby Dick of sports bettors. But horse racing fans better recognize the Houston furniture magnate/betting whale as the owner of Eclipse Award-winning sprinter-turned-stallion Runhappy. And one of Runhappy’s offspring, Joyful Cadence, runs for her sire’s second stakes progeny victory in Saturday’s Black-Type […]
By winning Oaklawn Park’s Temperence Hill Stakes on Saturday, 47/1 longshot Carlos L produced one single winner in Saturday’s Cross Country Pick 5. That winning ticket earned its lucky and savvy holder a healthy $108,475 payoff from the regular Saturday multi-track, multi-race wager. Saturday’s Cross Country Pick 5 incorporated three […]
The Grade 2 Rebel Stakes, which holds court as the lone Kentucky Derby prep of consequence this weekend, has a Grade 1 winner in its field. Bob Baffert doesn’t train 8/1 Get Her Number, the lone Grade 1 winner in Saturday’s Rebel at Oaklawn Park. Nor does Brad Cox. No, […]
If Concert Tour was your garden-variety band embarking on a, well, concert tour, he’d be one of those hot new groups from the underground. A group people have heard of, but don’t really know about. He may not have broken through to the main stage yet, but Concert Tour is […]
Essential Quality and Greatest Honour came out of their weekend Kentucky Derby prep victories none the worse for their victorious efforts. And, their respective trainers have already plotted their next stops on the Derby trail. Essential Quality, who splashed through the Oaklawn Park slop for a 4 ¼-length victory over […]
Again, when you’re handicapping a Monomoy Girl race, like Sunday’s Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn Park, it’s best to put the pen down. Instead, pick up your attention and simply watch. Betting on Monomoy Girl, especially in a race like this, lacks value. For horse racing fans, however, it […]
From a betting standpoint, Saturday’s Grade 3 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park lacks value. Do you want 3/2 Essential Quality or 8/5 Jackie’s Warrior? There are five other horses in the field, but this isn’t a rhetorical question. From a watching standpoint, the 1 1/16-mile Southwest lacks nothing. How can […]
This weekend’s stakes card gives us another shot at seeing the 2021 debuts of Essential Quality, Jackie’s Warrior, and Monomoy Girl. After two weather postponements over the past two weekends, Oaklawn Park finally gets a thumbs-up from Mother Nature. That means the Arkansas track finally gets to turn loose its […]
Scrambling to make up eight lost days of racing, Oaklawn Park officials announced a revamped schedule that reschedules its five canceled stakes races, and adds races and purse money to the Arkansas track’s schedule. Oaklawn isn’t the only American racetrack feeling the polar blast buffeting the Central and Eastern US. […]
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert began plotting his next moves for his deep bench of Kentucky Derby prospects, with the first move sending top prospect Life Is Good to the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Baffert’s second move sends Freedom Fighter across the country for […]
Oaklawn Park announced late Monday evening that it canceled this weekend’s Thursday through Sunday racing card, citing stormy forecasts for the Hot Springs, AR, region. This once again pushes back three Grade 3 races, including a key Kentucky Derby prep involving Champion 2-Year-Old Essential Quality. That race, the Southwest Stakes, […]
Looking at this weekend’s notable stakes races takes the eye halfway around the world to the $20 million Saudi Cup. Another look also takes the eye back to three races postponed from last weekend to this weekend – the Southwest Stakes, the Bayakoa Stakes, and the Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn […]
With ice and frigid temperatures in the forecast, Oaklawn Park canceled its Presidents’ Day weekend card on Wednesday, rescheduling its five stakes for the following weekend. That means horseplayers must wait another five days to see Champion 2-Year-Old Essential Quality make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3 $750,000 Southwest […]
This weekend’s stakes races bring us Essential Quality making his 3-year-old debut in one Kentucky Derby prep. They bring us the first win-and-you’re-in Derby prep, and they bring us a Derby prep that gives the winner a berth in the Preakness Stakes. They also bring back Monomoy Girl for her […]
Two Kentucky Derby preps – one on each coast – grab this weekend’s stakes spotlight. Those are the Grade 3 Holy Bull from Gulfstream Park and the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis from Santa Anita Park. Not to be forgotten are two Kentucky Oaks preps, the Grade 3 Forward Gal […]
The first page of this week’s Kentucky Derby futures board got tighter – partly a byproduct of two horses getting loose from their rivals last weekend. The first was Caddo River, who moved to 16/1 at Circa Sports and 15/1 at William Hill Nevada. Dropping beneath 20/1 at this point […]
One of the seven horses entered in Friday’s Smarty Jones Stakes will get his first stakes victory. It won’t be a graded stakes victory, but not one connection will throw this one back. Nor will they throw back the 17 Kentucky Derby qualifying points up for grabs to the top […]
He remains the Lion in Winter, albeit a lion overseeing a smaller pride these days. But D. Wayne Lukas is back at Oaklawn Park. He’s back to the winter jungle he ruled for most of the 1990s, and back without many of the high-profile clients who helped put him in […]
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