Sunday is election day at Oaklawn.
The 12th and final race, a $110,000 Arkansas-bred maiden special weight sprint, will mark the career debut of Mayor, a 3-year-old gelding bred and owned by Van Buren, Ark.-based JRita Young Thoroughbreds and trained by Ron Moquett of Hot Springs.
Everett Young, aka, “JR,” and wife Rita, named Mayor after the late Allen Toothaker, who was Van Buren’s mayor in 1958-1978 and 1991-1994.
“Very happy about it,” said Toothaker’s son, Mark Toothaker, who is stallion sales manager for Kentucky’s famed Spendthrift Farm. “They’ve been such good friends and were great friends of dad. We’re very happy with all that. They’re good folks.”
Mark Toothaker is a native of Van Buren, a town of approximately 24,000 in far western Arkansas near the Oklahoma border. Toothaker said he grew up on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River, “right down the street” from Everett Young, who was a hunting buddy and business partner (property development) of Allen Toothaker.
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“I don’t know of a time when I didn’t know JR,” Mark Toothaker said. “I didn’t meet Rita until later on, when they got married, but I’ve known JR my entire life. Never known a time I didn’t know JR.”
Spendthrift’s Mark Toothaker in January at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s January Mixed Sale
Mark Toothaker and the Youngs later became business partners in the Thoroughbred industry, racing horses together in 2010 and 2011. JRita Young Thoroughbreds was formed shortly before the couple purchased 40 acres of land in 2011 from Allen Toothaker’s family. The land in east Van Buren, once Allen Toothaker’s cattle farm, became 4 T Aker Farm, which is now home to the Youngs’ broodmare band that targets the lucrative Arkansas-bred program.
“It (farm) looks fantastic, phenomenal,” Mark Toothaker said. “They’ve done such a good job with it. It’s unrecognizable from what it used to look like.”
The first foal born at 4 T Aker Farm, Rita Young said, was Mayor, who is by Grade 3 winner Cutting Humor. Toothaker said he’s known for approximately a year that the Youngs planned to name a horse after Allen Toothaker, who died in 2004.
“We’ve been anticipating this and excited about it for a while,” Toothaker said.
Mayor is a half-brother to Landlord, who won two races last season at Oaklawn for JRita Young Thoroughbreds and Moquett. Landlord also finished second in the $150,000 Rainbow Stakes for 3-year-old Arkansas-bred sprinters. Landlord and Mayor are out of Vivian Da Bling, who won the My Trusty Cat Stakes in 2014 at Delta Downs.
Mayor has five published workouts since Dec. 28 at Oaklawn, including a half-bullet from the gate (:47.80) Feb. 3. Mayor (4-1 on the morning line) is scheduled to be ridden by Flavien Prat, the 2024 Eclipse Award winner as the country’s outstanding jockey.
“It sounds like that he’s got a little bit of talent, so that’s what we’re hopeful for,” Toothaker said of Mayor. “Hopefully, he makes good showing.”
Probable post time for the 12th race is 5:53 p.m. (Central).
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