A Day at the Races

Oaklawn is a celebrated horse track with nostalgic family appeal.

by

Travel

“You have nothing to worry about. The last patient I gave one of those to won the Kentucky Derby!”

— Groucho Marx as Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush in A Day at the Races

Ah, the particular magic of a visit to a crowded racetrack — the jumble of faces and outfits, the air of urgent expectation, the wafting aromas, and especially the sounds, from blustering winds spinning dust devils on the track to the metallic patter of the announcer’s voice in loudspeakers on high.

At this February’s Martha Washington Stakes, for example, held at the Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas, you could hear the announcer echo the race’s progress with his practiced eye and modulated voice, an art in its own right. From the first “And — we’re off!” he unleashed a surreal pastiche of the horses’ names and movements that sounded like madcap poetry.

“Knickelandime is prominent,” the announcer reported drily at first. “Maximum Offer alongside of her. Counting Stars right behind with her stablemate Search Party, who gets to the rail and hits the first turn scraping paint.”

With the horses galloping on, his voice grew more urgent by degrees until he was channeling pure adrenaline in the final stretch: “Newtown Pike trying to rally on down the center! Wide open Maximum Offer inside. Knickelandime, Newtown Pike, Search Party moving together. Four-way driving finish! It’s a battle! Here comes Search Party ... Search Party head in front! Search Party wins the Martha Washington!!”

Not that the Martha Washington Stakes have much to do with our nation’s original First Lady. Rather, it’s just one of many stakes competitions with colorful names, including the “General MacArthur Overnight Stakes” and the “Smarty Jones Stakes.” The latter, named for the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, is a critical stepping stone on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. That’s the proper name for a series of races at celebrated tracks that grant winners points toward qualifying for the most fabled race in the country, held at Churchill Downs in Louisville on the first Saturday of May. There’s also the Road to Kentucky Oaks, on which the Martha Washington is one station. Winners on that circuit vie for enough points to participate in the race held the day before the Derby every year, also at Churchill Downs. As it turns out, Oaklawn is a station stop for many such pilgrimages on the path to the Triple Crown or less storied titles.

“Last year, the Arkansas Derby alone had over 70,000 guests on the property that day. And to give you perspective, the town of Hot Springs has a population just shy of 38,000. So we’re almost doubling the whole town of Hot Springs with a single event.” — Chris Ho, Oaklawn’s manager of marketing

Founded in 1904, Oaklawn is not among the oldest American tracks (many having sprung up in the nineteenth century), but it’s one of the most respected. And the list of its races, throughout a season typically running from December to the first weekend in May, is peppered with major stakes competitions, both in terms of each race’s purse and its prestige as a step toward major titles.

Chris Ho, Oaklawn’s vice president of marketing, says this month is especially loaded with significant races. “March starts out on the first Sunday of the month with our Rebel Stakes. That’s a great Grade Two, and a graded race is basically a race with higher competition, where the horses have earned their spot in a graded stakes race. So they go through a series of races, from their first entry race to an allowance race. As the horse wins and accumulates a good record, that record can then carry over into eligibility for a graded stakes race.”

Those in turn can help qualify a horse for the Kentucky Derby. “Horses that come in first, second, third, and fourth will get points towards eligibility for the Kentucky Derby,” he explains. “So with the Rebel Stakes, we’ll start March off with the Kentucky Derby qualifier, and we’ll end the month with another Kentucky Derby qualifier, the Arkansas Derby on March 28th. That’s our biggest race of the season, the Arkansas Derby. It’s a $1.5 million purse.”

Purses, split between a race’s winner and the top runners-up, are one measure of a race’s importance, with the Rebel Stakes sporting a $1 million purse, and the Honey Bee Stakes (on the same day) boasting a $750,000 purse. These have grown with Oaklawn’s rising profile. Back in 1972, for example, it was big news that the Arkansas Derby, which launched in 1936 with a $5,000 purse, became the track’s first race with a purse of $100,000. Also that year, the track began handling over $1 million a day in bets.

But prestige also comes from hosting champions. Before winning the 2004 Kentucky Derby, the aforementioned Smarty Jones won both the Rebel Stakes and the Arkansas Derby, snagging not only a chunk of those purses, but a $5 million bonus that Oaklawn offered that year in honor of its centenary. And 11 years after, the legendary American Pharoah won the same two races on his way to claiming the Triple Crown.

All of which explains that expectant buzz in the air as the countdown to start time begins. A few million here, a few hundred thousand there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Aside from its world-class resort, spa, and casino, that’s part of Oaklawn’s draw, which has also grown over the years.

“Last year,” says Ho, “the Arkansas Derby alone had over 70,000 guests on the property that day. And to give you perspective, the town of Hot Springs has a population just shy of 38,000. So we’re almost doubling the whole town of Hot Springs with a single event.” Such staggering numbers make sense if you consider the vast space a world-class track involves.

“You have people in the stands and the infield, but arriving in stages, like for different races,” says Ho. “They flow in all day long. Some people crowd around the apron, the concrete flat area between the grandstand and the track. Then we have the Jockey Club restaurant, the Carousel restaurant, the Post Parade restaurant, and the Mainline Sports Bar.” All of those have screens on which to watch the races, but many visitors opt for the open-air experience.

“The Arkansas Derby is one of the later races in the day, and by then it’s just like a big party in the infield,” Ho says. “We have tents set up out there. We’ll have the Arkansas Razorback Marching Band back again for the second year, and they play in the infield and get the crowd hyped. Then they’ll play the fight song right before the Arkansas Derby, and even march on to the track.”

Things have changed considerably since Oaklawn was once viewed as a haven for vice and the mob, just as Las Vegas itself has changed. “We invite the families now,” says Ho. “In fact, we have a kids’ day on March 7th, where we give out free ice cream to the first 500 kids in the door.”

That’s not all. “There will actually be four days in March where we have bouncy houses, a rock wall, magicians, face painters, and food trucks on the infield,” he continues. “People around here have grown up at Oaklawn. They remember playing in the infield, and the petting zoo they used to have years ago. A lot of people from around the central Arkansas area pretty much grew up coming here as kids.”

And so, beyond the high stakes and the prestige, the racing and restaurants, Oaklawn offers something priceless: family memories.