LITTLE ROCK — Catchy enough to adorn T-shirts, the line from a 1980s television series so perfectly describes what’s happening at Oaklawn Park that the options are to commit plagiarism or admit to embarrassing viewing habits.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” George Peppard’s fictional character used to say when his A-Team soldiers of fortune had again won out over oppression or injustice. Col. John “Hannibal” Smith’s plans were not always as well thought out as the one put into place at the racetrack in Hot Springs last fall.
At that time, Oaklawn announced that it was bumping the purse of the Rebel Stakes from $300,000 to $500,000, assuring the winner of enough graded money to be in the starting gate for the Kentucky Derby. The grand goal was to produce even more Derby starters who had raced at Oaklawn.
Barely a week from the race, the Rebel is shaping up to be all that.
Attracted by the purse and the timing, two of the top trainers in the country have decided the Rebel is the perfect place for two of their best 3-year-olds to get on the Derby trail. Based solely on their 2-year-old campaigns, Gemologist for Todd Pletcher and Sabercat for Steve Asmussen are on the Derby Top 20 list compiled by the Daily Racing Form’s Jay Privman and Mike Watchmaker.
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Winner of the Rebel the past two years, Bob Baffert will send in something from California. All told, Pletcher, Asmussen, and Baffert have 68 of the almost 400 nominees to the Triple Crown. For many, time is growing short to bank the $200,000 or so in graded earnings that will be necessary to secure a spot in the Derby field.
From now until the May 5 Derby, none of the horses will have more than two starts and that’s why the date of the Rebel is an integral part of the trainers’ plans. The trainer that takes down the $300,000 first prize can relax and not crank his horse to the hilt for the next race — the one prior to the Derby. On the other hand, a trainer who misses out on the money in the Rebel still has time to target the $1 million Arkansas Derby or the Blue Grass at Keeneland on April 14.
If a trainer decides to wait until the weekend following the Rebel to pursue a big purse in Kentucky or New Mexico and then bombs, he is faced with running a horse three times in six weeks, a grind that is avoided these days.
The 2012 debut of both Sabercat and Gemologist will garner national attention.
Sabercat’s first three races of 2011 included two sprints, one of them on a sloppy track, and a fiasco on the grass. Since getting back on dirt and going a mile or more, he is perfect in three races, including a four-length victory in the $1 million Delta Jackpot last November. The $600,000 earned at the small track in Vinton, La., put Asmussen in a no-sweat situation of simply preparing the horse for Louisville.
Unbeaten in three races, Gemologist has only $103,855 in graded earnings. Pletcher traveled this road with Super Saver in 2010. Like Gemologist, Super Saver won the Kentucky Jockey Club race at 2. He made his first start at 3 in mid-March in Florida, finished second in the Arkansas Derby, and then won the Kentucky Derby.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.