Photo:

Remington Park / Dustin Orona Photography

Most Wanted fought hard down the stretch, even being passed momentarily
by E J Won the Cup. But when all was said and done, undefeated Most Wanted
prevailed to win the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sunday at Remington
Park, giving trainer Brad Cox a fourth win in the race.

Jockey Florent Géroux won the race for the second time,
having guided home Owendale for Cox in 2019. Géroux and Most Wanted both were surprised
when E J Won the Cup approached them in the stretch after they had taken an
easy lead.

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“When I got into the stretch, he was just trying to figure
some things out,” Géroux said. “When Mike (Smith) joined me on the lead, my
horse turned his ears and threw his head up in the air. When (Most Wanted) was
able to look him in the eyes, you could tell my horse gave me an expression
like he knew he was ahead of us.”

At that point, with about a sixteenth of a mile to go, Most
Wanted rebroke, taking back the lead as the two horses approached the wire. E J
Won the Cup, ridden by Smith, couldn’t make up that lost ground. Most Wanted
dug in and hit the finish line one length ahead.

Smith, a Hall of Fame jockey, was riding at Remington Park
for the first time since he rode there regularly in 1988, the year the track
opened.

“I can barely remember a thing about riding here when I was
that young,” Smith said, and after looking at his picture from 1988, he
laughed. “I had a little hair then and a moustache, yes, but all that’s gone
now like my memories here. I didn’t even remember there was a zoo across the
street.”

Most Wanted and E J Won the Cup were at each other like a
couple lions fighting over raw meat at the zoo. In the end Most Wanted wanted
it most.

Géroux made some pretty good excuses for Most Wanted, who is
4-for-4 in his career for his breeder-owners Gary and Mary West.

“It was his first time under the lights, first time shipping
this far, first time around two turns,” Géroux said. “He had a lot to think
about.”

All he had to think about afterward was taking his picture
in the winner’s circle. The winner covered the distance of 1 1/8 miles in
1:49.46 on the fast track, earning $240,000 for the Wests. After four starts
the 3-year-old son of Candy Ride out of Distorted Humor mare Beach Walk has
banked $519,553.

“He is going to be a very interesting horse moving forward,”
Géroux said.

Most Wanted’s other three wins came in his native Kentucky,
against maidens at Churchill Downs on June 21, then two more at Ellis Park. One
came against first-level allowance horses July 21. He got his first stakes win
in the $275,000 Ellis Park Derby on Aug. 11.

Sent off as an odds-on favorite, Most Wanted (4-5) paid
$3.60 to win, $2.10 to place and $2.10 to show. E J Won the Cup (2-1) was only
a head in front of third-place finisher Indispensable (7-1). The rest of the
order of finish was Dimatic (9-2) fourth, Flat Hanby (24-1) fifth and Mena
(55-1) sixth. Canada Gate and Society Man were pre-race scratches.

Most Wanted set virtually all the interior fractions with
Dimatic in the early going, taking turns bobbing heads past the poles. They established
early fractions of 23.60, 47.48, 1:11.30 and 1:36.47 at the mile.

The winner is beginning to look a lot like his sire Candy
Ride, who was undefeated and retired at 6-for-6 in his career, including group
wins in San Isidro in South America and two graded stakes in North America.
Candy Ride ended his career with a trip to the winner’s circle in the Pacific
Classic (G1) at Del Mar.

The victory for Cox and Géroux gave them training and riding
doubles Sunday as they also won the $200,000 Remington Park Oaks with Alpine
Princess in the race right before the Oklahoma Derby.

The win moved Cox  out
of a tie with Oklahoma racing hall of famer Donnie Von Hemel for most wins in
the Derby. Cox, currently third in the country in the trainers standings by
money earned, had won the Oklahoma Derby three years in a row from 2019 to 2021
with Owendale, Shared Sense and Warrant. Von Hemel won with Clever Trevor and
Queen’s Gray Bee in 1989 and 1991, back when the race was called the Remington
Park Derby and was held in the spring. Von Hemel’s last trip to the winner’s
circle in this race came in 2007 with Going Ballistic after the race’s name was
changed to the Oklahoma Derby and switched to the fall.