Can Baffert Strike Again in the Rebel?
By Paul Mazur of Picks & Ponderings at ChicagoNow
This year's edition of the Rebel Stakes offers a purse of
$900,000 (an increase of $150,000 over last year's edition), as well as Road to
the Kentucky Derby points (50-20-10-5) to the horses placed first through
fourth. The Rebel is the third of
Oaklawn's four Kentucky Derby prep races.
The listed Smarty Jones Stakes and the Southwest Stakes (GIII) come
before it, with the Arkansas Derby (GI) still to come. The Rebel Stakes has been remarkably
consistent through its history, as races go: since being instituted in 1961 it
has always been restricted to three-year-olds, and has always been run at 1
1/16 miles.
Three winners of the Rebel Stakes have eventually won the
Kentucky Derby. American Pharoah (2015)
kicked off his three-year-old campaign last year with a facile victory in the
Rebel, and won the Arkansas Derby even more easily. The rest of the story goes almost without
saying: he won the first Triple Crown in 37 years, the Haskell, the Breeders'
Cup Classic, and the title of Horse of the Year. Sunny's Halo (1983) made his three-year-old
debut in the Rebel Stakes, won it, then annexed both the Arkansas Derby and the
Kentucky Derby. 2004 Champion Three Year
Old Male Smarty Jones (2004) swept the Southwest, the Rebel, and the Arkansas
Derby before winning both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. Beyond American Pharoah, one other Rebel
winner has finished his season as Horse of the Year: Preakness and Breeders'
Cup Classic winner Curlin (2007). Other
than those two and Smarty Jones, three other Rebel Stakes winners have also
ended their year as Champion Three Year Old Male: Belmont winner Temperence
Hill (1980), Preakness winner Lookin at Lucky (2010), and late-season dynamo
Will Take Charge (2013).
Race
10: Rebel Stakes (G2), three-year-olds, one and one sixteenth miles on the
dirt, post time 6:06 CDT
Death, taxes, and Bob Baffert winning the Rebel Stakes. Since 2010, Baffert has won five of the last
six renewals of the Rebel and has a chance to become this race's leading
trainer outright at six victories with a win.
CUPID is Baffert's hope, and CUPID scratched out of the San Felipe
Stakes that Danzing Candy took control of and asserted himself as a top
three-year-old. So CUPID ships to
Oaklawn with hopes at grabbing his fair share of the nine hundred grand in the
Rebel.
What CUPID will get is a pace to
chase into - someone in the fourteen horse field will go to the front and it
projects to be AMERICAN DUBAI or SIDING SPRING.
If you find those names familiar, they were the pace controllers in the
Southwest - the lead-in to this race.
Given that there could be an overreaction of pace and the race could
have dawdling fractions, CUPID did close into :48 4/5 and 1:13 interior
fraction when graduating - a full one to two seconds slower than the
Southwest. Even though it's not the same
surface, the is that if CUPID is fine if an honest pace materializes or if it
doesn't. Martin Garcia comes east to
ride.
SUDDENBREAKINGNEWS turned in a
nifty rally to that solid pace last time in the Rebel and returns in this
spot. He certainly makes sense in this
field, and stands to be favored off solid humans and that Southwest score. In a prep season that has seen more chalk
than a calculus lecture, SUDDENBREAKINGNEWS has the figures, form, and
performance to be the wagering favorite and that - if you believe trends hold -
makes him worth playing. So does winning
a similar race a month ago. A double
digit post is no picnic, but he did come from the parking lot in the Southwest
and a carbon copy of his effort can defeat this bunch. Quite usable for the multi-race wagers but
that post makes this space a bit less bullish.
MADTAP might just get the coziest trip of all in the Rebel Stakes. He locked horns in the early stages of his
allowance race last time out and despite a wide trip, still coasted home to an
easy score. The Rebel will be the first
time in stakes company for MADTAP, who is brought to you by the
Winchell/Asmussen owner/trainer team that have had success here before with
Untappable (2015 Apple Blossom) and Tapiture (2014 Southwest). Why not another one, who - like the prior
stakes winner - has Tapit as a sire.
There is an upward progression of speed figures with MADTAP and another
step forward makes him a player.
Selections:
#3
CUPID
#14
SUDDENBREAKINGNEWS
#7
MADTAP
Longshot: #11 CUTACORNER was 23-1 in the
Southwest Stakes and stands to be in that neighborhood again. His Southwest was a nightmare of a trip where
he was five wide into the first turn and affected by Z ROYAL taking up. CUTACORNER gets a rider switch to Alex Birzer
in the Rebel Stakes, and this Jack Van Berg trainee has brought his wide
rallies each time in his late two-year-old and early three-year-old
starts. Sometimes it works (two back in
an N2L), sometimes it doesn't. The team
hits at 50% in the money in the last two months. This space is giving a second chance, and the
odds will make a flutter on a "trip notes horse" worthwhile.
Handigambling:
$7 Trifecta 3, 7, 14 / 3, 7, 14 / 3, 7, 11, 14 ($84)
$1 Exacta 3, 7, 14 / 3, 7, 11, 14 ($9)
$7 Win #3 ($7)
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