The first Saturday in May 2020 was unlike any horse racing has experienced in modern history.
No Kentucky Derby (G1), at least not yet, and instead, a computer-generated ‘race’ pitting all 13 American Triple Crown winners against each other was featured on NBC, along with a celebration of American Pharoah’s Triple Crown sweep in 2015.
Oh, and two divisions of the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby highlighted a 14-race card at Oaklawn Park, one of a few tracks that have still been racing since the COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold, and put on hold, the world.
The Arkansas Derby, usually one of the last major stepping stone events before the Kentucky Derby, was instead shrewdly placed on May 2 by Oaklawn Park officials to cap off the 2020 meeting at the Hot Springs track.
As a side note, it was at Oaklawn in mid-March that football coach Sean Payton was allowed into the track to watch some racing after spectators were barred from all tracks that kept racing. He tested positive for the COVID-19 virus soon after his trip to the track (and after shaking hands and posing for photos trackside) but Oaklawn continued on. The track, which seemingly has liberal whipping rules and a minimum amount of transparency as far as horses breaking down or not finishing races, raked in the betting dollars.
And on Arkansas Derby day about $41 million was bet on the card, by far the most ever wagered on a day of racing at Oaklawn (and somehow $100,000 on-track was bet even with no spectators). A pair of Bob Baffert-trained 3-year-olds, Charlatan, co-owned by Toronto’s John Fielding, and Nadal, remained undefeated with impressive wins in the two Derby splits adding to Baffert’s potent Kentucky Derby team (which also includes Authentic, also co-owned by Fielding).
Horse racing landed in the sports pages across the continent, hooray! Except it was Secretariat’s romp in the Virtual Triple Crown Showdown that dominated (note the Associated Press story in this Las Vegas Review-Journal, photo supplied by Richard Eng) that hogged the headlines. The Arkansas Derby landed at the bottom left of the page.
Any horse racing coverage, we tell ourselves, is good. It just seems odd that during horse racing season, especially in Canada it is not easy to squeeze in a horse racing feature in a lot of mainstream media.
Perhaps a virtual Queen’s Plate should be in the works come June 27?
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