Time For Truth Will Have To Show He Belongs In G2 Rebel

“We can’t do anything now, except answer a lot of questions,” trainer Ron Moquett said.

February 23, 2024

By Robert Yates

Trainer Ron Moquett | Photo By Robert Yates

Lightly raced Time for Truth will have a chance to emulate his sire in the $1.25 million G2-Rebel Stakes for 3-year-olds Saturday at Oaklawn.

Time for Truth is from the first crop of millionaire Omaha Beach, who beat champion Game Winner by a nose in the second division of the 2019 Rebel for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella. While the Rebel was the sixth career start for Omaha Beach, it will be just the third for Time for Truth and first around two turns. Omaha Beach went on to win the Arkansas Derby and was listed as the program favorite for the Kentucky Derby before being scratched within 24 hours of the race.

Co-owned by Arkansan Harry Rosenblum of Little Rock and trained by Ron Moquett of Hot Springs, Time for Truth (15-1 on the morning line) drew post 13 in the projected 13-horse field.

“We can’t do anything now, except answer a lot of questions,” Moquett said. “He’s a pretty horse. He’s a well-bred horse. Now, let’s get a good trip and see where we fit. We’d like to win this race because we’ve nibbled at it several times. We’d like to go ahead and win this one and the Arkansas Derby. That’s our plan.”

The Rebel is Oaklawn’s final major prep for the $1.5 million Arkansas Derby (G1) March 30, a race Omaha Beach also won.

Time for Truth became the first Oaklawn winner for Omaha Beach with a front-running 1 ¾-length debut score in a six-furlong maiden allowance race Dec. 31, generating a robust 89 Beyer Speed Figure. Time for Truth tackled stakes company in his next start and finished second to the accomplished Valentine Candy in Oaklawn’s $150,000 Ozark Feb. 10. The betting favorite, Time for Truth, was beaten 2 ½ lengths after leading to midstretch.

Moquett used the Ozark as an unlikely bridge to the Rebel after Oaklawn lost 11 days of training (Jan. 13-23) to winter weather. Plan A, Moquett said, was a one-mile allowance Jan. 28, a split race that spawned five Rebel entrants (Northern Flame, Tejon Pass, Next Level, Mena and Woodcourt).

“The weather screwed us up, but from this point everything is over,” Moquett said. “We’re just looking straight ahead. We’re in the 13 hole and I think we deserve to be in the race. So, if he likes the distance and he is a horse that’s meant to go on, this is going to give him an opportunity to show it.”

Rosenblum purchased Time for Truth for $47,000 at the OBS Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. He sold an interest in Time for Truth to Everett Dobson (Cheyenne Stables) following the colt’s debut victory. Moquett finished second in the 2016 Rebel with future champion male sprinter Whitmore, co-owned at the time by Rosenblum, and fourth in 2017 with Petrov.

Omaha Beach ($2,131,483) ranked fourth in progeny earnings among North American first-crop sires in 2023. Omaha Beach stands at Kentucky’s Spendthrift Farm for a $40,000 fee.

Source: Time For Truth Will Have To Show He Belongs In G2 Rebel (paulickport.com)