One Liner joins list of Kentucky Derby Hopefuls

Ron Correll
Senior columnist
Tracksideview

One Line leads Southwest field home; All Photos provided by Oaklawn/Coady

The Grade 3 Southwest Stakes on Feb. 20 at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., threw a monkey wrench into one 3-year-old’s Kentucky Derby chances and gave a big boost to another.

The one getting the boost was One Liner who ran his record to 3-0 with a win in the mile-and-a-sixteenth race. The son of Into Mischief lived up to early expectations for the WinStar Farm colt trained by Todd Pletcher.

The colt suffering the setback was Uncontested who finished off the board after setting quick early fractions of 22.93 and 46.55 for the half-mile. After blistering his way to the three-eighths pole in 1:10.98, Uncontested never offered any resistances when One Liner came calling at the quarter-pole.

One Liner won by about sixth lengths in a final time of 1:35.37 with Petrov second, Lookin At Lee third and Silver Dust fourth.

Pletcher said after the race he still had time to get two more races in One Liner before the Kentucky Derby.

The El Camino Real Derby on Feb. 18 produced a whole lot of nothing in my opinion. The top two finishers in the race aren’t Triple Crown nominated and it was a synthetic track race. This is the first year that the El Camino Derby was added the points’ races and maybe that will be reconsidered in the future. The top four finishers were Zakaroff, More Power to Him, Ann Arbor Eddie (he is Triple Crown nominated, but he only got two points) and Tribal Storm, another non-nominee.

Juvenile Champion Classic Empire still has a problem with his right foot and the abscess is slow to drain according to trainer Mark Casse. He was planning to run Classic Empire in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream on March 4, but the colt has missed a workout and Casse said he will seek another option.

One of three Japanese colts could be in the Kentucky Derby starting gate if the connections choose to come. The three colts in order of preference are Epicharis, Mont Saint Legame and Adirato. The colts have 50, 40 and 20 points respectively, but I’m not going to add them to any list until a decision is made on coming to the United States.

The next points’ race will be the Risen Star on Feb. 25 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. The Risen Star starts the 50-point series races where the winner will collect that many points and will most assuredly get a spot in the Kentucky Derby starting gate. The second-, third- and fourth-place finishers will pick up 20, 10 and five points respectively. The next two races, both on March 4, will be the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream in South Florida and the Gotham at Aqueduct in New York.
From now on I’m only going to list the top 20 colts in points’ order. The full list can be found at the Churchill Downs web site.

Classic Empire, 32 points
El Areeb 20
McCraken 20
Gormley 20
Gunnevera 14
Practical Joke 14
Lookin At Lee 12
Uncontested 11
One Liner 10
Irish War Cry 10
Mastery 10
Mo Town 10
Guest Suite 10
Royal Mo 10
Petrov 8
Irap 8
Wild Shot 7
True Timber 6
No Dozing 5
Bonus Points 5