Stellar Tap, Home Brew Favored in Oaklawn Stakes

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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Trainer Steve Asmussen leads Stellar Tap into the winner's circle after a maiden victory last summer at Saratoga Race Course

The $150,000 Oaklawn Stakes at Oaklawn Park April 23 doesn't carry Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) implications, but the 1 1/8-mile dirt race does provide its winner an automatic berth into the May 21 Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico Race Course.

It seems unlikely that any in the seven-horse Oaklawn Stakes are up to Triple Crown-contending standards. Not one has hit the board in a stakes race.

Stellar Tap , Home Brew , The Skipper Too , and Happy Boy Rocket  are the race favorites based on their allowance accomplishments.

Stellar Tap, a gray son of Tapit   trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen for owners L and N Racing and Winchell Thoroughbreds, was second in an allowance optional claiming race April 1 at Oaklawn after a ninth-place finish in the Rebel Stakes (G2) there.

Stellar Tap is best known for being the horse that made Asmussen the winningest trainer in North American history when he gave him his 9,446th winner last summer in a successful debut at Saratoga Race Course.

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Home Brew (Street Sense  ) races following a layoff of more than 3 1/2 months after running 10th in the Smarty Jones Stakes Jan. 1. He had previously won an allowance optional claimer at Oaklawn Dec. 4 for dual Eclipse Award-winning trainer Brad Cox and owners Gary and Mary West.

Joel Rosario rides 5-2 morning-line favorite Stellar Tap while Jose Ortiz is aboard 3-1 Home Brew.


Entries: Oaklawn S.

Oaklawn Park, Saturday, April 23, 2022, Race 8

  • STK
  • 1 1/8m
  • Dirt
  • $150,000
  • 3 yo
  • 3:54 PM (local)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L
1 1Clancy's Pistol (KY) Ramon A. Vazquez 118 Robertino Diodoro 8/1
2 2Stellar Tap (KY)Keeneland Sales Graduate Joel Rosario 118 Steven M. Asmussen 5/2
3 3Kuchar (KY) Florent Geroux 118 Rodolphe Brisset 5/1
4 4Home Brew (KY) Jose L. Ortiz 121 Brad H. Cox 3/1
5 5Long Crow (KY) Isaac Castillo 118 Steven M. Asmussen 12/1
6 6The Skipper Too (FL) Ricardo Santana, Jr. 118 John Alexander Ortiz 4/1
7 7Happy Boy Rocket (KY)Keeneland Sales Graduate Martin Garcia 118 William I. Mott 5/1