Multiple stakes winner Ivan Fallunovalot, the 2015 Texas Horse of the Year, returned to the track Sunday morning following his half-mile workout Friday and remains on target to make his 7-year-old debut in the $125,000 King Cotton Stakes Feb. 4, trainer Tom Howard of Hot Springs said.
Under Hall of Fame jockey Calvin Borel, Ivan Fallunovalot breezed in :48.40 over a muddy surface, a time that ranked third out of 39 works recorded at the distance. Howard said Sunday morning that Ivan Fallunovalot will have his final work for the King Cotton next weekend.
“Got to play it by ear on this deal, the way this weather is, but it will be in the neighborhood of Friday, Saturday or Sunday,” Howard said. “That puts us a week out.”
Ivan Fallunovalot, a gelded son of Valid Expectations bred by Eileen Hartis and owned by Lewis Mathews of Bismarck, Ark., is the two-time defending King Cotton champion. A $25,000 claim at the 2014 Oaklawn meeting, Ivan Fallunovalot has amassed $800,808 in career earnings, winning 15 of 24 starts.
Ivan Fallunovalot has won four consecutive races, the last coming in the $250,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash (G3) Nov. 19 at Laurel.
Thursday’s eighth race, a fourth-level allowance/optional claiming sprint, could produce a starter, or starters, for the 6-furlong King Cotton. Among the eight horses entered is millionaire Alsvid, winner of Oaklawn’s $300,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) in 2015 and King Cotton runner-up the last four years.
Ivan Fallunovalot ran second in the 2015 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap.
From Oaklawn news release