Page 3 - First Samurai News Today

This is the kind of Saturday at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort that fans come talking about seasoned veterans and leave enraptured with new discoveries.

Millionaire and two-time Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) runner-up C Z Rocket could return to Oaklawn during the current meet, said Peter Miller, trainer of the 9-year-old gelding who has two previous stakes wins at the Hot Springs, Ark. track.

All North American Thoroughbreds officially celebrate their birthday Jan. 1, and those turning 3 enter their year of Kentucky Derby opportunity.

In what will be her initial stakes engagement, Spendthrift Farm’s up and coming Anacopa merits serious consideration among a field of eight fillies and mares going six furlongs in Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Las Flores Stakes at Santa Anita.

Practical Move defeated three of trainer Bob Baffert's 2-year-olds in the Los Alamito Futurity to move into Kentucky Derby contention.

Trainer Robertino Diodoro, Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 2020, is off to a fast start at the 2022-2023 meet, picking up his second stakes win since the Dec. 9 opening and his second straight $200,000 Tinsel Stakes victory on Saturday with John Holleman’s Bal Harbour.

John Holleman’s Bal Harbour rushed to the lead Saturday under jockey Cristian Torres and held it throughout for a win in the $200,000 1 1/8-mile Tinsel Stakes for horses 3 years old and up before an estimated crowd of 8,250 at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs on Saturday.

Pretty Birdie and jockey David Cabrera are back, and Oaklawn racing stands to gain.

Frank Brothers will retire from his roles as bloodstock agent and a member of Keeneland’s yearling inspections team, he announced Friday.

Two six-figure stakes and the Oaklawn return of last years Arkansas Derby runner-up highlight the tracks second Saturday of racing.