Next start for Far Right undecided

Hot Springs, AR (SportsNetwork.com) – Far Right, winner of Monday’s Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park, will make his next start at the historic track, but which stakes has yet to be determined.

“I’ll let the horse tell me when he wants to run,” trainer Ron Moquett said. “I want to get to the big race, but I want to get there with a fresh, healthy, happy horse.”

Moquett said the 3-year-old, owned by Robert LaPenta and Harry Rosenblum, will start next in either the $300,000 Southwest Stakes on Feb. 16 or the $750,000 Rebel Stakes on March 14. Both stakes are 1 1/16 miles and are followed by the $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 11, three weeks before the Kentucky Derby.

Far Right had Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith in the saddle for the Smarty Jones. The pair broke from the inside post and scooted along the rail the entire race. The colt was able to rally from off the pace coming into the stretch. Mr. Z, the 11-10 favorite, had taken command coming off the final turn but drifted out badly with a furlong to run.

“There was some room down on the rail. I really won with something left. I definitely think he’ll go on an extra sixteenth to an eighth of a mile, maybe even a mile and a quarter,” Smith said.

Smith will be aboard Far Right which ever race comes next.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Thursday morning that Mr. Z, third in the Smarty Jones, will make his next start in the $300,000 Southwest Stakes.

Mr. Z, owned by Zayat Stables, was ridden in the Smarty Jones by Jon Court.

“If Jon would have not hit him, I think, and just hand rode him, he might have won by five or six (lengths),” Lukas said. “He knifed him left-handed. He won’t take that.”

Owner Ahmed Zayat and Lukas will come to a decision on the colt’s jockey.

Categorized in: Horses