Levy/Levy Loop/Levy Trail South

I cannot explain why I have not recorded my walks recently. Today, I walked Levy Trail South in 33:14. On, I believe, Tuesday, I walked randomly around Levy for a little over 39 minutes. I walked the original Levy Loop yesterday in right around 34 minutes. ...I  had an awful writing day at Oaklawn this afternoon. My blood glucose level plummeted against all reason as I started to write. A guzzled can of Sprite as I starred at three paragraphs of garbage an hour in saved me. Still, a story that should have taken me an hour and a half to write took nearly three and a half hours. The result was like a bad haircut. I don't like it, but I will predict no one else notices in the morning.

This paragraph looked like hell after nearly an hour of drunken work. Twenty sober minutes later, a can of Sprite turned it into this: Hot and Sultry, the 6-5 favorite, made her 1/2-length win over second-place I’m the Boss of Me look nearly effortless. Sarah Harper, ridden by Rafael Bejarano and trained by Ron Moquett, overcame a momentary brush with a drifting I’m the Boss of Me to hold onto third, 3 1/2 lengths behind the winner and 1 length in front of fourth-place Perfect Happiness in the six-horse field.

Levy Trail South/Levy Trail South

 I walked Levy Trail South on Sunday morning in thirty-four-something minutes. Then I watched an NFL playoff triple-header. I walked Levy Trail South in 35:12 this morning.

PETE PERKINS

HOT SPRINGS — The equine version of Ginobili is back and perhaps better than ever.

The consensus of the horseman with entrants in the $150,000 1-mile Fifth Season Stakes for horses four years old and up stated Ginobili — the four-length winner on a fast track in 1:37.35 — was nearly unbeatable at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort on Saturday.

Slam Dunk Racing’s, Richard Baltas’, Jerry McClanahan and Michael Nentwig’s Ginobili, a six-year-old son of Munnings trained by Peter Miller, won with minimal effort, his jockey Ricardo Santana, Jr., said.

“Man, I’ll tell you what, I think he only gave me 75 to 80 percent of what he had today,” he said.

Nick Cosato of Slam Dunk Racing said Santana, Jr.’s, report was good news.

“There’s nothing wrong with leaving a little gas in the tank, right?” he said. “So, if he has a little more gas, it will only help us down the line.”

Under Martin Garcia, Runnin’ Ray closed 1 1/2 lengths in the quarter-mile homestretch to finish second, 1/2 length in front of third-place Rated R Superstar, the 10-year-old son of Kodiak Cowboy who closed fastest of all. Heart Rhythm finished fourth in the field of 10, 5 1/4 lengths behind the winner.

Dreamer’s Disease, off at 51-1, led through the first quarter-mile, as expected, in 23.23. Ginobili cruised along in second, 1 length back as the 9-5 favorite.

Still in the lead, Dreamer’s Disease covered the half-mile in 46.53, 1 length in front of Ginobili’s seemingly effortless jog. Runnin’ Ray was fourth, five lengths back. Dreamer’s Disease would finish last, 19 3/4 lengths behind Ginobili, who took the lead into the final turn and led through 3/4 miles in 1:11.08.

With a quarter-mile to go, Runnin’ Ray was second, 5 1/2 lengths behind Ginobili.

“My horse is really, really a warrior,” Garcia said. “He tries all the time. I know today was a tough race, but he always gives me a chance.”

Rated R Superstar’s owner Danny Caldwell, said the race set up as he hoped. Still, he said his entrant probably needed a longer stretch run to the 1-mile wire, an added 1/16th of a mile to race, and an opponent other than Ginobili. 

“Closers had a shot today,” Caldwell said. “[Ginobili] got the jump on us. I don’t think we would’ve caught him anyway, even going a mile and 1/16th. We might’ve run second, but I don’t think we would have caught Ginobili today.”

Rated R Superstar won last season’s Fifth Season. Two starts later, he won Oaklawn’s Grade III 1-mile-and-1/16th Essex Handicap.

Santana, Jr., declined credit for his ride on the winner.

“The only thing I can say, anybody could have won on that horse today, how he was training in the morning,” he said. “He was training impressively, and I was excited to see him come back from a layoff.”

Ginobili, a winner of a Grade II mile race two seasons back who finished second in the Grade I Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar in 2021, injured his left foreleg 11 months ago, took 10 months off, and returned to finish second, a head behind the winner who ran 6-furlongs in 1:08.27 at Del Mar, a suburb of San Diego on Nov. 20.

Cosato said his winner was indeed named for the retired Argentinian NBA star Manu Ginobili.

“I just loved the way Charles Barkley on TNT, every time Ginobili would play, would [shout], ‘Ginobili!’ ” Cosato said. “They’d go to a commercial break, and he’s still screaming, ‘Ginobili.’ The thought was, if we ever got him down in the winner’s circle, people would be going, ‘Ginobili.’ We were doing that today.” 

Robertino Diodoro trains Soy Tapatio, the 3-1 Fifth Season second choice who finished seventh, 9 1/4 lengths behind Ginobili.

“The horse who won the race today, he was the real deal,” Diodoro said. “I think he made everyone look bad today, to be honest. He’s an extremely nice horse.”

Ginobili exits the Fifth Season with a career record of 17 4-3-1 and earnings of $564,950.

“He did what he was asked today,” Cosato said. “He’s still lightly raced, so hopefully the best is ahead of him.”

Oaklawn

HOT SPRINGS—I walked for 42:07 on an elaborate route I guess is roughly 2.56 miles long this afternoon before the start of the Fifth Season Stakes. The advance turned out OK, I think.

QUESTION OF THE DAY. ...Did this explanation make anyone else ask, "Do the fuck what?"

Mr. Biden’s lead personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Biden’s legal team had tried to balance being transparent with “the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation’s integrity.”

PETE PERKINS

HOT SPRINGS — A mix of old favorites and familiar stars will race in the $150,000 1-mile Fifth Season Stakes for horses four years old and up at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort today.

Ten-year-old Rated R Superstar, the defending Fifth Season winner and the winner of Oaklawn’s Grade III Essex Handicap last season, and the six-year-old gelded Ginobili, who once hinted at true superstardom, are among 10 older horses entered in the 2022-23 Fifth Season, the ninth race on today’s 10-race Oaklawn card.

Post-time for the 37th Fifth Season is scheduled for 4:22 p.m.

Ginobili, despite two off-the-board finishes in two career starts at Oaklawn, will bring a run of west-coast success to the Fifth Season from trainer Peter Miller’s California stable. Ginobili is the 7-5 morning-line Fifth Season favorite.

“We had an allowance race that we were looking at out here, but it didn’t go,” Miller said. “We pivoted to this a couple of weeks ago.”

Ginobili, when he raced for part-owner and currently suspended trainer Richard Baltas, became noteworthy when he led Nadal through 6 furlongs in 1:09.05 in the 7-furlong San Vicente Stakes on Feb. 9, 2020. Nadal won 3/4 lengths in front of second-place Ginobili. Four weeks and four days later, the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered the world. The handful of fans who watched Nadal win the 2020 Grade II Rebel Stakes and Grade I Arkansas Derby watched through Oaklawn’s chain-linked fences from the front parking lot and backstretch. The frightened crowd inside the gates was limited to essential personnel and observers.

Nadal was sent to retirement at 4 4-0-0, with three graded-stakes wins, after an ankle injury in mid-May 2020. His purse earnings under Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert were $1,053,000.

Ginobili (16 3-3-1, $472,325) won his only graded-stakes start in the Grade II 7-furlong Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar in August 2021. He would finish second in the 2021 Grade I Breeder’s Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar in November. After a sixth-place finish in the Grade I Cigar Mile Handicap at Aqueduct in December 2021, a left foreleg injury in February 2022 led to a 10-month break. Ginobili returned to finish second by a head in his last start, a 6-furlong optional-claiming race at Del Mar won in 1:08.27 on Nov. 20, 2022.

“He ran great off the layoff, and he’s trained super since,” Miller said.

 Ginobili was moved from Baltas’ stable to Miller’s before Baltas was suspended by California Horse Racing Board stewards in early December 2022 for allegedly violating race-day medication rules.

Ricardo Santana, Jr., is the listed rider for Ginobili.

Soy Tapatio, the Fifth Season’s 9-2 second choice, is entered from trainer Robertino Diodoro’s barn. Diodoro leads Oaklawn’s trainer standings with 17 wins through Friday. His current wins total includes three in Oaklawn stakes races.

 Soy Tapatio, a five-year-old gelded son of Not This Time, won the Zia Park Championship in a track-record time for 1 mile and 1/8th of 1:47.18 in Hobbs, N.M., on Nov. 22.

“He’s done well for us,” Diodoro said. “He’s a nice little horse.”

Cristian Torres, Oaklawn’s leading rider with 17 wins through Friday, is listed to ride Soy Tapatio.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen has entered the six-year-old Silver Prospector, 20-1 on the morning line. A win for Silver Prospector would extend Asmussen’s training record for stakes wins at Oaklawn to 98. Silver Prospector’s win in the 2020 Grade III Southwest Stakes is among Asmussen’s record total.

The gelded Rated R Superstar (65 13-10-8, $1,781,280), a son of Kodiak Cowboy owned by Danny Caldwell, is trained by Martin Villafranco, the son of Rated R Superstar’s former trainer Federico Villafranco. Rated R Superstar won in his last start, the 1-mile-and-70-yard Jeffrey A. Hawk Memorial Stakes at Remington Park on Dec. 17.

“He’s got to have several factors go right to be able, with his running style, to win,” Caldwell said. “One reason I think he’s been able to stay sound all these years is his running style. He kind of just gallops around the track and lets everyone go, and then he’ll run the last half-mile. That’s kind of the way he does it, and you’re not going to change the way he does it no matter what jockey you put on him. He’s going to do it his way, and his way’s won 1.7 million dollars.”

Issac Castillo is set to ride Rated R Superstar in the Fifth Season.

An ideal setup for Rated R Superstar, 4-1 on the Fifth Season morning line, requires a non-speed-favoring racetrack with plenty of early speed entered, Caldwell said. Three Fifth Season entrants led from the gate in their last start.

“When you give away a hundred fifty thousand, I don’t care where it’s at, people are going to show up,” Caldwell said. “And that’s what they do. They show up to get the money.”

Caldwell is ready to show up and perhaps show off with a sixth career Oaklawn win for Rated R Superstar.

“It should be a good race,” Caldwell said. “It will be. If everything goes right, maybe we’ll get there.”

Oaklawn/Levy Trail South

 I walked Levy Trail South at lunchtime today in 34:04. ...Yesterday afternoon, I walked for 40:05 to and around Oaklawn. I lost $4 on two bets, so I am currently down $4 for the season.

Levy Trail Loop

 I walked the Levy Trail Loop this morning in 34:45. It has turned cold here. Not insane cold. More like regular ol', pre-climate change, middle-of-the-fucking-winter Levy cold. Well, shit, at 2:43 p.m., it's 55°F in the greater North Little Rock metro. ...I ordered a new-to-me copy of Percy Cerutty's Middle-

Distance Running, a book I estimated shortly after it arrived at lunchtime today that I read thirty times between the ages of 14 and 21. I have since never gone more than a month or two without reading it for at least a page or two of worship. I am thirty pages into its 195 already. The bible of my youth, this book. It is in remarkably good condition. An only slightly-worn dusk jacket came with this 1964 first edition. If a Pam's Boy reader had asked me to guess, I would have said Herb Elliot was the runner on the cover. Of course, I recognized John Landy as quickly as I remembered he was the cover boy of the 1964 first edition. This might be my all-time favorite purchase. If a Pam's Boy reader does not remove and preserve this book after I die, I'll be madder than two motherfuckers.

Oaklawn

 HOT SPRINGS—I walked for 38:14 around the grounds of Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort this afternoon before I wrote the following story for the paper. ...Also, I drove the Rocket Car from the racetrack parking lot to my driveway in 1:02:22. That trip included a stop at Edward's to buy a package of seven chicken wings and a bottle of disposable store-brand bleu-cheese dressing.

PETE PERKINS

HOT SPRINGS — The principal question about the winner was answered in short order.

Off at 3-5, the wonderfully-bred Victory Formation rushed to the lead out the gate, established it in the short run to the first turn, and held it throughout for a three-length win in the $250,000 1-mile Smarty Jones Stakes for three-year-old horses in 1:38.14 before an estimated crowd of 8,000 at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort on Sunday.

His connections and the rest of the racing world now know Victory Formation can excel around two turns.

“He broke really well,” said Victory Formation’s jockey Flavien Pratt. “I didn’t have much of a game plan before the race. I was just hoping to get him into the race and get a good spot. When he broke so well, he got us into the lead, and from that point, I was just cruising all the way around. He responded well when I asked him to make a little move.”

The Smarty Jones is the first of four Oaklawn races to offer Kentucky Derby qualifying points. Ten points go to the winner, owned by Spendthrift Farm and Frank Fletcher Racing Operations.

Brad Cox trains Victory Formation and Angel of Empire, who Joe Talamo rode at 18-1 to second, three lengths in front of third-place Dennington. Western Ghent was fourth, 6 1/2 lengths behind the winner.

Second through fourth earned four, three, and two qualifying points, respectively. How Did He Do That finished fifth to earn one point.

Victory Formation’s two starts as a two-year-old — both wins — drew meaningfully high speed ratings, particularly his latest at 6 furlongs against $100,000 optional claimers at Churchill Downs on Nov. 26, a race he won in 1:09.53. Reasons for uncertainty among gamblers and other observers were that Victory Formation had never raced beyond the 6 1/2 furlongs of his maiden win at Keeneland Race Course on Oct. 21, which made the Smarty Jones his first start in a stakes race and around two turns.

Still, Cox said he thought Victory Formation’s breeding enhanced his chance to race long, and evidence was plentiful. Victory Formation’s sire Tapwrit won the 2017 Grade I 1-mile-and-1/2 Belmont Stakes. His maternal grandsire, the late Smart Strike, was named North American sire of the year in 2007 and 2008.

Shortly after the Smarty Jones, Cox said there was no way to know without a race like the one won by Victory Formation on Oaklawn’s fast track.

“The breeding suggested he would go long,” Cox said. “You never really know if they will go two turns until they do it. He has to confirm it. We have opinions. Horses have the answers. He gave us the right answer today.”

Under Pratt, Victory Formation broke on top from the eighth stall, began a trek across the others toward the rail a furlong after the start, and appeared to cruise thereafter.

Victory Formation led through the quarter-mile in 23.20, with Western Ghent two lengths back in second. Albaugh Family Stables’ Angel of Empire was in seventh, 6 3/4 lengths behind the winner.

Fletcher said he gained confidence by the ease of Victory Formation’s effort as he cruised through a half-mile split of 47.75.

“I loved it when I saw the [half-mile] time,” said Fletcher of North Little Rock and an owner of multiple car dealerships. “I’ve learned to watch the times. He went in 47 and that’s pretty slow. I was worried he had to come out of the eighth position and give a lot of energy.”

By then, Angel of Empire was in fourth, 3 lengths off the lead.

At three-quarters, run in 1:12.36, Victory Formation led by 1 1/2 lengths over Western Ghent, trained by D. Wayne Lukas, in second.  Angel of Empire was in third and within 2 1/2 lengths of the lead.

Angel of Empire was in second, three lengths behind Victory Formation at the head of the stretch. The gap would remain the same through the wire.

“I thought I had a really good shot, but Flavian, he had so much horse, and once he let him go, he just sort of took off,” Talamo said. “My horse was still coming, too. He definitely can improve off of that and move forward.”

Cox said it was doubtful Victory Formation would enter Oaklawn’s second Derby qualifier, the Grade III 1-mile-and-1/16th Southwest Stakes set for Jan. 28.

“I’m a believer in taking time with these horses early in their careers,” Cox said.

Cox said Oaklawn’s Grade II 1-mile-and-1/16th Rebel Stakes, scheduled for Feb. 25, is among multiple options thereafter.

“I think we have a great system with these three-year-olds, and so far it’s working,” Cox said.

Fletcher said he likes for his horses to race at Oaklawn but leaves the decisions to Cox.

“My role in this is to write the checks, celebrate, and that’s about it,” he said. “I don’t have anything to do with [the rest of it].”