Shooters Shoot

A lightly raced, once-pricey juvenile trained by Bob Baffert won the GIII Palos Verdes S., but it wasn't chalk, the $3.65-million Fasig-Tipton 2-year-old Cezanne (Curlin). Instead it was the year-younger, $300,000 OBS April 2-year-old Essential Wager (Honor Code), who was making his stakes debut after riding a two-race win streak. Essential Wager left the gate smartly and came up on the inside to emerge from the early fray with the lead, marking the first quarter in :22.21 with Team Merchants (Nyquist) pressing from the outside. The two held position with...

In a Classic season blighted by the coronavirus pandemic, Oaklawn rounds out its winter meet with not one but two renewals of the GI Arkansas Derby. Facing a tough group of contenders in Saturday's second division of the Classic prep, including undefeated Nadal (Blame), winner of the GII San Vicente S. and GII Rebel S., and GII Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby hero King Guillermo (Uncle Mo), defending juvenile champion Storm the Court (Court Vision) will try to recover some of the sparkle from his 2-year-old season. This year, he...

Poor old Mr. Big News (Giant's Causeway). He very quickly turned into yesterday's news, didn't he? The dust had barely settled on his breakout success, in the Oaklawn S. Saturday, when his trainer supplanted him with a rather less welcome headline of his own. True, Bret Calhoun's Class B violation--reported in Wednesday's TDN--was a relatively modest affair. Though cannabidiol is the second most active ingredient in marijuana, it is evidently considered fairly innocuous. In view of his overall record, and mitigating circumstances, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission stayed two-thirds of...