Hot Springs, AR (SportsNetwork.com) – Eclipse Award winner American Pharoah has been made the overwhelming 1-2 morning line favorite for his 2015 debut in Saturday’s $750,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.<\/p>\n
The 1 1\/16-mile Rebel is the final local prep for the $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 11. A win is worth 50 points toward a place in this year’s Kentucky Derby.<\/p>\n
American Pharoah, last year’s champion 2-year-old male, will start from post 4 in the seven-horse field as he begins his 2015 racing season. Trained by Bob Baffert, American Pharoah will be ridden by Victor Espinoza who retains the mount.<\/p>\n
“He knows the horse,” Baffert said about Espinoza. “He’s a fast horse, but he puts him in a place where he’s comfortable. He’s not a speed freak and he’s not rank. He still needs to break well and get around there. A lot is expected of this horse, but he hasn’t run in a while, although we feel confident he’s going to run well.”<\/p>\n
American Pharoah, owned by Zayat Stables, has not started since winning the FrontRunner Stakes at Santa Anita last Sept. 27. He missed the last three months of 2014 with a suspensory-related injury.<\/p>\n
As a 2-year-old, American Pharoah won the Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 3 after finishing fifth in his debut race last August. American Pharoah has earned $361,500<\/p>\n
Bob Baffert won last year’s Rebel with Hoppertunity and previously won with Secret Circle (2012), The Factor (2011) and Lookin At Lucky (2010).<\/p>\n
The Truth Or Else, second in Oaklawn’s Southwest Stakes, is the 4-1 second pick and has drawn the rail post with Hall of Fame jockey Calvin Borel again riding. The chestnut colt is owned by Harold Lerner and trained by Ken McPeek.<\/p>\n
The Truth Or Else came from well off the pace to get second behind Far Right in the Southwest on Feb. 22.<\/p>\n
“If we can get a little bit cleaner inside trip than we had last time, I think we’ll be fine,” McPeek said.<\/p>\n
The 3-year-old was third in last year’s Champagne and Nashua Stakes and sixth in the Remsen Stakes on Nov. 29 at Aqueduct. The Truth Or Else has earned $197,950 in eight starts.<\/p>\n
Champion filly Take Charge Brandi will not start the Rebel after an injury was discovered Tuesday morning. The 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner has a non-displaced chip in her right knee and will miss 60 days.<\/p>\n
Here is the field for the Rebel in post position order: The Truth Or Else, Calvin Borel, 4-1: Madefromlucky, John Velazquez, 6-1: Tizwonderfulcreek, Belen Quinonez, 30-1; American Pharoah, Victor Espinoza, 1-2; Bold Conquest, Ricardo Santana Jr., 8-1; Paid Admission, Shaun Bridgmohan, 15-1 and Sakima, Ramon Vazquez, 20-1.<\/p>\n
The Rebel Stakes has an approximate post time of 7:06 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hot Springs, AR (SportsNetwork.com) – Eclipse Award winner American Pharoah has been made the overwhelming 1-2 morning line favorite for his 2015 debut in Saturday’s $750,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park. The 1 1\/16-mile Rebel is the final local prep for the $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 11. A win is worth 50 points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}