Tejano Twist Rallies to Capture Whitmore Stakes at Oaklawn Park

Three years after his first Whitmore, Tejano Twist made it two. The 7-year-old Practical Joke gelding delivered his trademark late charge under Francisco Arrieta, sweeping to the lead on the far outside in deep stretch and coasting to a two-length victory in the Grade 3, $250,000 Whitmore Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 14. The winning time over a fast track was 1:08.93.

Tough Catch finished second, followed by Gold Sweep in third. Tejano Twist paid $6, $3.20 and $2.40; Tough Catch returned $4.80 and $3.20; Gold Sweep paid $5.60.

Trainer Chris Hartman's other entrant, Wendelssohn, set the pace from post one and took the field through a half-mile in 44.68 seconds. Tejano Twist, last early out of post four, began picking up rivals passing the three-eighths pole. Arrieta swung him to the outside, and the gelding took command in the final sixteenth under wraps.

"I started asking him to pick it up passing the three-eighths pole," Arrieta said. "I almost went inside, but I took him to the outside and let him go. I didn't want to find any trouble. I had so much horse, too. I was just waiting for the stretch, switch leads, and let him go. He's a nice horse and has a good trainer, too."

The Whitmore was Tejano Twist's seventh career stakes win and his first as a 7-year-old, pushing his lifetime earnings to $1,903,882 from 12 victories in 47 starts. The performance also represented something of a quick turnaround: he had won a six-furlong allowance race at Oaklawn by 3 1/2 lengths over last year's Whitmore winner Booth just 14 days earlier on March 1, and had run second by a half-length to Roll On Big Joe in the $150,000 King Cotton on February 8.

Hartman was unfazed by the compressed schedule. "Running him back very quick, you know? Fourteen days back, but he's doing good. His last two races have probably been some of his better races."

The backstory behind this horse deepens the numbers considerably. Hartman, on behalf of co-owners Jackie Slawson of JD Thoroughbreds and Joe Davis, claimed Tejano Twist for $80,000 at Churchill Downs on June 19, 2022. Since that transaction, the gelding has won six stakes and earned $1,531,662, a return that makes the claim one of the more profitable calculations in recent Oaklawn history.

His stakes resume now includes the Whitmore in both 2023 and 2026, the Ring the Bell Stakes in 2023, the King Cotton Stakes in 2025, the Steel Valley Sprint at Mahoning Valley in 2022, and the Bet On Sunshine Stakes at Churchill Downs in November 2023, the race that pushed him past $1 million in career earnings at the time. Three of his seven stakes wins have come at Oaklawn.

What makes this sequence unusual is the age distribution. Tejano Twist had already won stakes at 2, 3, 4 and 6 before Saturday's score, and the gap years only add to the durability argument. He remains sharp enough to win graded company while running back on 14-day spacing.

The Whitmore serves as the final major local prep for the $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) at Oaklawn on April 11, and Tejano Twist now enters that conversation with a Grade 3 win and genuine momentum.

Elsewhere on the same 11-race card, Goodall made an emphatic stakes debut in the $150,000 Purple Martin Stakes for 3-year-old filly sprinters, taking command on the outside turning for home and drawing off to win by 4 1/2 lengths at six furlongs.