Rebel Stakes. Kentucky Derby Prep Race with Solid Contenders

Few prep races on the road to the Kentucky Derby has matched the success of Oaklawn Park's Rebel Stakes over the past 15 years. Since 1998, five winners of the the Grade 2, 1 1/16-mile Rebel went on to be named U.S. champion at some point in their careers and four of those won a Triple Crown race.

The 2012 Rebel Stakes, which is set for March 17 and carries a purse of $500,000, is expected to draw a field worthy of its predecessors. Trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the last two Rebel Stakes with The Factor and two-time champion and Preakness Stakes winner Looking at Lucky, plans to make a return trip to Hot Springs, Ark. with his dynamic duo of Secret Circle and Castaway. Those two colts shipped from Southern Califo
ia last month and swept the two divisions of the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

Secret Circle and Castaway are likely to face a large field. As many as 15 3-year-olds with Kentucky Derby aspirations are under consideration to run in the 2012 Rebel Stakes.

The Rebel Stakes dates back to 1961 when it was run under handicap conditions for older horses. Eventually, the race settled into its role as a stop on Oaklawn's road to the Kentucky Derby. Oaklawn's 3-year-old series begins with the Smarty Jones Stakes and continues with the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes, Grade 2 Rebel Stakes, and the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, which is scheduled for April 7, 2012.

In the early 1980's, two winners of the Rebel would go on to find success in the Triple Crown. Temperance Hill, the 1980 Rebel winner, would go on to win Belmont Stakes and be named that year's champion 3-year-old colt or gelding. In 1983, Sunny's Halo followed wins in the Rebel and Arkansas Derby with a victory in the Kentucky Derby, making him just the second horse Canadian-bred horse to ever win America's greatest horse race.

After some lean years, Rebel winners again began to make hay in the Triple Crown beginning in 1998. That year, Victory Gallop would win the Rebel and Arkansas Derby and then deny Real Quiet his bid at Triple Crown immortality with a gut-wrenching nose victory in the Belmont Stakes. Victory Gallop would lose out on champion 3-year-old honors to Real Quiet, but would go on to be named champion older horse the following season.

Since then, the Rebel has been won by Smarty Jones (2004), who would have his own Triple Crown bid foiled following wins in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness; 2007 winner Curlin, who would go on to win the Preakness and be a two-time Horse of the Year; and Looking at Lucky, champion 2-year-old and champion 3-year-old colt, who followed up his 2010 Rebel Stakes win with a victory in the Preakness.

Bob Holthus, who passed away this winter, leads all trainers with five wins in the Rebel Stakes. Three jockeys are tied in most Rebel wins with three apiece. They are Mike Smith, Pat Day and Larry Snyder.