HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Blind Luck, The Factor and Sway Away all rolled through the Oaklawn Park backstretch around 5:15 p.m. Central on Wednesday, in town for stakes races on Saturday. The horses flew in from Southern California along with Grade 1 winner Smiling Tiger, who is being pointed for the Grade 3, $200,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap at Oaklawn on April 14, said his trainer, Jeff Bonde.

 

Blind Luck, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2010, is here for the Grade 3, $150,000 Azeri, which is the prep for the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn on April 15. Her trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer, said on Wednesday night that she had traveled well. Garrett Gomez has the mount in the Azeri.

 

“It was very easy on her,” Hollendorfer said of the trip. “The flight was very direct.”

 

Jimmy Barnes, assistant to The Factor’s trainer, Bob Baffert, said the two-hour and 48-minute flight was uneventful. The horses flew into Hot Springs, Ark., and took a short van ride to Oaklawn. 

 

“He’s super-happy,” Barnes said of The Factor, who is to start in the Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel on Saturday.

 

Sway Away, another candidate for the Rebel, was munching on hay in the early evening Wednesday, along with his stablemates Smiling Tiger and Slew the Man, who also came in from California. 

 

Entries for the Azeri, for fillies and mares, and the Rebel, for 3-year-olds, will be taken on Thursday.

The tempo of Oaklawn’s series for 3-year-olds will quicken Saturday, when speedsters The Factor and Sway Away invade from Southern California for the Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel.

But awaiting them is J P’s Gusto, a former California resident who is proven at the pace of racing out west. He defeated Sway Away by a half-length in the Grade 2 Best Pal last summer, then, one start later, was a front-running winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity.

“He’s got a pretty good turn of foot, that’s for sure,” trainer Joe Petalino said of J P’s Gusto. “But he can also come from off of it.”

J P’s Gusto could get a beautiful setup in the Rebel. He has the speed to get position behind expected leader, The Factor, who set a track record for six furlongs at Santa Anita in December, when he won his maiden in 1:06.80. Sway Away, too, has shown zip. He pushed a quick pace when he won his maiden at five furlongs, and in his final prep for his two-turn debut Saturday, he rattled off seven furlongs in 1:23.60 in a Santa Anita work March 12.

J P’s Gusto, meanwhile, has been sharpening his skills for the matchup. He breezed a bullet five furlongs in 59.40 seconds in company at Oaklawn on Sunday. Petalino said a workmate broke off at the half-mile pole, while J P’s Gusto began his drill at the five-eighths pole, under jockey Bryan McNeil