Insurgent Stakes Kentucky Derby Prep Race With Strong Contenders

Few prep races on the highway to the Kentucky Derby has matched the success of Oaklawn Park’s Insurgent Stakes over the previous 15 years. Since 1998, 5 winners of the the Grade 2, 1 1/16-mile Insurgent went on to be named U.S. champion sooner or later of their careers and 4 of these gained a Triple Crown race. The 2012 Insurgent Stakes, which is about for March 17 and carries a handbag of $500,000, is anticipated to attract a discipline worthy of its predecessors. Coach Bob Baffert, who has gained the final two Insurgent Stakes with The Issue and two-time champion and Preakness Stakes winner Taking a look at Fortunate, plans to make a return journey to Scorching Springs, Ark. along with his dynamic duo of Secret Circle and Castaway. These two colts shipped from Southern California final month and swept the 2 divisions of the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park. Secret Circle and Castaway are prone to face a big discipline. As many as 15 3-year-olds with Kentucky Derby aspirations are into consideration to run within the 2012 Insurgent Stakes. The Insurgent Stakes dates again to 1961 when it was run beneath handicap situations for older horses. Ultimately, the race settled into its function as a cease on Oaklawn’s highway to the Kentucky Derby. Oaklawn’s 3-year-old collection begins with the Smarty Jones Stakes and continues with the Grade Three Southwest Stakes, Grade 2 Insurgent Stakes, and the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, which is scheduled for April 7, 2012. Within the early 1980’s, two winners of the Insurgent would go on to seek out success within the Triple Crown. Temperance Hill, the 1980 Insurgent winner, would go on to win Belmont Stakes and be named that yr’s champion 3-year-old colt or gelding. In 1983, Sunny’s Halo adopted wins within the Insurgent and Arkansas Derby with a victory within the Kentucky Derby, making him simply the second horse Canadian-bred horse to ever win America’s best horse race. After some lean years, Insurgent winners once more started to make hay within the Triple Crown starting in 1998. That yr, Victory Gallop would win the Insurgent and Arkansas Derby after which deny Actual Quiet his bid at Triple Crown immortality with a gut-wrenching nostril victory within the Belmont Stakes. Victory Gallop would lose out on champion 3-year-old honors to Actual Quiet, however would go on to be named champion older horse the next season. Since then, the Insurgent has been gained by Smarty Jones (2004), who would have his personal Triple Crown bid foiled following wins within the Kentucky Derby and Preakness; 2007 winner Curlin, who would go on to win the Preakness and be a two-time Horse of the Yr; and Taking a look at Fortunate, champion 2-year-old and champion 3-year-old colt, who adopted up his 2010 Insurgent Stakes win with a victory within the Preakness. Bob Holthus, who handed away this winter, leads all trainers with 5 wins within the Insurgent Stakes. Three jockeys are tied in most Insurgent wins with three apiece. They’re Mike Smith, Pat Day and Larry Snyder.