Whiting Has Three-Year-Olds Poised For Early Impact
Trainer Lynn Whiting, best known for 1992 Kentucky Derby winner and Arkansas Derby runner-up Lil E. Tee, is wasting no time getting two of his top 3-year-olds in action this meet. Saturday, he will start Charles J. Cella’s Lady Stonewall in the $60,000 Dixie Belle Stakes and he has Officer Alex on target for his seasonal debut in the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes Jan. 21, the feature on the special Martin Luther King Jr. Day card.
Lady Stonewall, a Harlan’s Holiday filly, will not only be making her first start of the year, but her stakes debut in the six-furlong Dixie Belle, where she drew post seven of seven. In her two starts as a juvenile, she finished second at Keeneland and then proved a gutsy winner, taking a tough maiden special weight at Churchill Downs by a head. She will be ridden by Robby Albarado, who is returning to Oaklawn to ride full-time for the first time since being leading rider in 1997.