Looking Ahead: Encounter Speed King, owner Ted Bowman, trainer Ron Moquett ahead of Southwest S.

Jan 23, 2025 Sara Dacus/TwinSpires.com

Speed King faces an important opportunity to live up to his name Saturday in the $1 million Southwest S. (G3), Oaklawn’s second of four Kentucky Derby qualifying races.

The gray colt has two auspicious races under his belt. In his career debut, he earned a Churchill Downs victory at 22-1 odds, wiring the field in a 6-furlong maiden special weight and winning by 2 1/4 lengths despite being bumped.

.@trustyourluck with a 22/1 top #ExpertPick winner! 💰

Speed King is a debut winner in R5 at Churchill Downs under @emoralesracing for trainer @ronmoquett! 👑

🎥 #TwinSpiresReplay pic.twitter.com/zAtzXRCJDZ

— TwinSpires Racing 🏇 (@TwinSpires) November 1, 2024

He stepped up in class and stretched out for his second start—the Springboard Mile at Remington Park—but still entered the race as the 2-1 favorite. As expected, Speed King went to the front and set the fractions. He led for seven-eighths of a mile, but Coal Battle advanced in the deep stretch, and the two dueled. Coal Battle won by a half-length, and the two were five lengths ahead of the rest of the field. In his next out, Coal Battle won the Smarty Jones S., Oaklawn’s first Derby prep.

Since the Springboard Mile, Speed King has recorded several impressive works. On Jan. 18, he turned in a bullet workout, the fastest of an astounding 317 horses training at the same distance that morning.

Owner Ted Bowman, who races under the name Triton Thoroughbreds, has been in the industry for 19 years, and Ron Moquett has trained his horses almost exclusively. Bowman and Moquett earned their first Grade 1 together: with 91-1 longshot Seek Gold in the 2006 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs. In the longest price in the history of the race and one of the greatest upsets in the history of Churchill Downs, Seek Gold paid $185.40 to win.

While Moquett has earned further Grade 1 wins with 2020 Champion Male Sprinter Whitmore, the Stephen Foster is the only Grade 1 on Bowman’s resume.

Bowman had Whitmore in mind when he was at the spring Ocala sale. He was looking for a natural athlete who was in his budget. Speed King’s works stood out at the sale. The team was impressed by his height and stride, and Bowman purchased him for $100,000. It also didn’t hurt that the horse was gray.

“I was looking for a gray horse because I’ve always felt like our stable had a lot of luck with them,” Bowman said. “He is my top pick ever at a sale, and this is the most excited I’ve been about a young horse.”

Most of Bowman’s success has come from buying into a horse or claiming high-level horses and trying to get them back on a winning path.

Bowman, whose home track is Oaklawn, has never had a Southwest contender. Moquett won the race in 2015 with Far Right. Jockey Rafael Bejarano, who has the mount on Speed King, has the unique distinction of winning the Southwest S. twice in one day. In 2012, Oaklawn split the race into two divisions, and he and trainer Bob Baffert swept them. The duo returned the next year and won the race again. Bejarano, who has a long history riding on the West Coast, decided to winter at Oaklawn to look for a Derby horse.

The 10-horse Southwest field is formidable. Speed King is 15-1 on the morning line. The 2-1 favorite is Del Mar Futurity (G1) winner Gaming, a Bob Baffert shipper from California. The 5-2 second choice is Patch Adams, a Brad Cox trainee who won a maiden special weight at Churchill by 10 1/2 lengths.

Saturday’s 12-race card at Oaklawn includes six stakes races. The Martha Washington S. for 3-year-old fillies is a points race for the Kentucky Oaks.