Sky Promise won the Temperence Hill Stakes in March at Oaklawn Park. Photo Credit: Sky Promise - Race Horse Facebook

By Shane Clausing

Horse Racing

Horse co-owned by Grande Prairie man looks for big win in Arkansas

Apr 27, 2020 | 2:27 PM

Five-year-old bay Sky Promise will look to end its meet at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas this Saturday on a high note in the Oaklawn Handicap.

The horse is owned by Grande Prairie’s Norm Tremblay, along with partners Tim Rollingson, Rick Wiest and Clayton Wiest from Lethbridge. Sky Promise has been racing since 2017.

This is Sky Promise’s biggest race yet, a Grade 2 that will include 14 different horses that have won graded races. One of those horses has $2,000,000 in career earnings.

The winner will receive 60 per cent of the $600,000 purse that’s up for grabs.

The winner will also get a berth into the Pimlico Special on May 15 in Baltimore, Maryland. It is set to run the day before the Preakness Stakes, which is usually the second jewel in US horse racing’s Triple Crown. It is still unclear if the Preakness will go ahead as scheduled May 16.

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Calgary native Robertino Diodoro is the trainer for Sky Promise. Orlando Mojico is the jockey.

The Oaklawn Handicap is reportedly scheduled to air live on NBC in the States on Saturday.

Sky Promise has won several major Canadian events over the last couple of years, including the Manitoba Derby, BC Derby, and the Canadian Derby all in one season. That made Sky Promise the first horse ever to win the Western Canadian Triple Crown.

Sky Promise has $455,889 in career earnings and has seven career wins.

In three starts this season Sky Promise has finished in the top three twice, including a victory in the Temperence Hill Stakes, which was also hosted at Oaklawn Park.

Hot Springs, Arkansas is one of only five tracks currently opened to horse racing in the US because of COVID-19. The race will be closed to the public.

A check of Sky Promise’s pedigree shows he can trace his lineage back to Northern Dancer and three US Triple Crown winners, Affirmed, Seattle Slew, and Secretariat.

In human terms, he would also be a distant cousin of the most recent American Triple Crown winner, Justify, as another horse name Pulpit is a great-grandsire to both.