Arkansas Derby isn't flashy, but it makes champions

	In 2004, Smarty Jones parlayed an Arkansas Derby win into a run at the Triple Crown. Can Lawyer Ron (above) match that feat in '06? AP
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- It was legendary sports columnist Red Smith who, in a column, once offered his readers directions to Saratoga Race Course like this: "Drive about 175 miles north from New York City, take a left at Union Avenue and go back about 100 years."

(Quick aside: In the summer of 1976, following my sophomore year in college, I worked as a summer intern at the Schenectady Gazette in upstate New York. One day I was assigned to cover the day's races at Saratoga. I sat down, and five minutes later Smith sat down next to me, which is roughly like going off at Pebble with two friends and having Tiger scoot up to the first tee and ask if you need a fourth.)

But I digress. The point of bringing up Saratoga and time travel is that I am typing these words from atop the grandstand at Oaklawn Park where, on Saturday, a chestnut 3-year-old named Lawyer Ron will try to cement his status as one of the favorites for the May 6 Kentucky Derby.

In each of the last two years, the path to the Kentucky Derby has gone straight through Hot Springs, boyhood home of Bill Clinton (signs around town trumpet this fact). Two years ago Smarty Jones swept the Southwest and Rebel Stakes and the Arkansas Derby before winning the Kentucky Derby and the $5 million bonus for the sweep put up by Oaklawn owner C.J. Cella.

Last year Afleet Alex romped in the Arkansas Derby. Three weeks later he got a horrible trip on the tail end of the suicide pace at Churchill Downs, yet jockey Jeremy Rose was still able to get him up for third place.

"Afleet Alex was the best horse by 10 lengths," says trainer Dan Hendricks, who trains 2006 Derby front-runner Brother Derek. Alex proved that by rolling in the Preakness and Belmont before he was retired with an injury.

Two years. Two horses using Oaklawn Park as the springboard to dominance of the Triple Crown. We might have a pattern here.

Back to Red. It's not fair to compare any racetrack to Saratoga, or, for that matter, to Del Mar. They are oases of charm and relatively solvent in a era when many tracks are being converted to bloodless simulcasting and slot machine parlors for mere survival. At Saratoga and at Del Mar, patrons dress up and come to watch horses run. At least many of them do.

That's not Oaklawn Park. It doesn't have Saratoga's elms or Del Mar's ocean. (It does have three lakes nearby, and, like both Saratoga and Del Mar, it is a vacation destination.) It also is not a shimmering boutique like Arlington Park in Chicago or Lone Star Park in Dallas. It is, instead, an old-school racetrack in a resort community of modest size (37,500).

Oaklawn is nowhere near a major population center, and its only concession to modern realities is a small casino on the second floor of the grandstand, where patrons can play "Games of Skill" in air-conditioned comfort. (The "skill" required is the dropping of a coin or the swiping of a credit card, followed by the watching of spinning wheels in search of three bars or three sevens. Some people might call these "slot machines," but slot machines are not legal in Arkansas, so they are called "Games of Skill.")

For the record, there are no slots at Saratoga Race Course, but there is a huge casino just a few hundred yards down Nelson Avenue, at the Saratoga Harness racing track. Del Mar does not have slots because they are not approved at California thoroughbred tracks, a contentious issue.

In most other regards, however, Oaklawn Park appears much as it did 25 or 50 years ago -- or 101 years ago, when the track conducted its first racing card. The trees on the sprawling infield are taller, to be sure, and in 1905 there were no Starbucks nearby. But otherwise, time has stood still for many years.