Baffert goes after another Southwest at Oaklawn

Horseracing Betting Lines

02/15/2012 - Hot Springs, AR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Trainer Bob Baffert has decided to start a pair of three-year-olds in Oaklawn Park's Southwest Stakes on Monday led by a Breeders' Cup race winner. The $250,000 mile race is part of the track's Kentucky Derby prep series.

Tuesday morning Breeders' Cup Juvenile Sprint winner Secret Circle arrived at Oaklawn along with stablemate Castaway. The two colts are expected to make up what appears to be a large field for the Southwest.

"I think we brought two very good horses," Baffert's assistant trainer Jim Barnes said .

Secret Circle, owned by Karl Watson, Paul Weitmann and Mike Pegram, will be the top money earner in the race with $368,990, most of it coming from his length victory in the Juvenile Sprint last November at Churchill Downs. He began his 2012 season with a second-place performance to Out of Bounds in Santa Anita's Sham Stakes last month.

"He just got beat. He didn't shut it down. He wasn't exhausted when he came back, so it was a good experience for him," Baffert noted after the Sham. "It was the first time he was able to rate off of horses. I think he got a lot out of it."

Castaway is in a different situation having just broken his maiden less than four weeks ago at Santa Anita. Owned by Coolmore, the colt has raced once a month since his career debut in August at Del Mar. He won for the first time last month in a 1 1/16-mile maiden claiming race.

Baffert won the 2010 Southwest with Conveyance and the last two runnings of Oaklawn's Rebel Stakes with 2010 Eclipse Award champ Lookin at Lucky and last year with The Factor.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.