Look Back: Arkansas-Bred Nodouble Wins Arkansas Derby

In conjunction with Tom Hall's Throwback Thursday features in BloodHorse Daily, BloodHorse.com each Thursday will present corresponding race stories from the pages of the magazine. 

This week is a stakes report of the 1968 Arkansas Derby won by Nodouble, who would go on to earn a classic placing by finishing third in the Preakness Stakes. Following is a BloodHorse staff report from the April 13, 1968 issue of BloodHorse.

While no Arkansas Derby winner ever has gone on to win the Kentucky Derby, the Oaklawn Park feature drew attention as a classics steppingstone last year when Barbs Delight ran third in that feature, then went on to win the Derby Trial and run second in the Kentucky Derby.

This year the $50,000 Arkansas Derby attracted none of the leading Kentucky Derby candidates and was won by a non-Derby eligible, Nodouble, while Kentucky Derby-nominated Te Vega finished second.

Nodouble was bred by Gene Goff at his Verna Lea Farms near Fayetteville, Ark., where the sire, *Noholme II, stood until this year and where Goff bred other stakes winners Nilene Wonder and Strate Stuff.

Nodouble at 2 placed in four stakes then won his first two races at 3, defeating Te Vega in the second, a March 25 allowance race at one mile and 70 yards.

Coupled with Loud Singer in a Verna Lea entry favored at 5-2, Nodouble pulled up from fifth place to be second to Etony in the stretch turn in the 32^nd Arkansas Derby, and drew out to win by a length. Te Vega, one of the topweights, closed to be second. The time was 1 2/5 seconds slower than Monitor’s track record, set when he won the Arkansas Derby last year.

Nodouble’s dam, Abla-Jay, by Double Jay, was purchased by Goff for $3,200 from Clay Simpson at the 1963 Keeneland fall mixed sale. The mare is from Ablamucha, whose dam, Sweet Betty, also foaled the dam of Nebraska State Fair Futurity winner Melanies Boots.

*Noholme II, sire of Nodouble, was syndicated last fall for $1 million and moved from Verna Lea Farms to Robert Marks’ Robin’s Nest Farm near Ocala, Fla. The former Australian champion was America’s leading sire of 2-year-old winners last year with 24 juveniles winning 44 races. Also sire of stakes winners Strate Stuff and Ernie’s Boy, *Noholme II had an Average Earnings Index of 1.36 with 51 year-starters through 1967.