INGLEWOOD, Calif. - For the first time in four years, the Grade 3 Hollywood Prevue on Saturday at Hollywood Park, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-olds, shapes up as something other than a lopsided affair.
It was not the case in the 2004 Prevue, when Del Mar Futurity winner Declan's Moon returned from a two-month layoff and cruised at 2-5.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Aqueduct's main track will soon be buttoned up tight for the winter. But before winter's deep freeze we get one last meaningful day of racing next Saturday, highlighted by the last Grade 1 stakes of the season, the Cigar Mile.
The Cigar Mile is usually a terrific betting race. A week out, there is an excellent chance the winner will come from one of three barns, because Bobby Frankel, Todd Pletcher, and Richard Dutrow Jr. train 16 of the 23 nominees - nearly 70 percent of the potential runners, including the one-two finishers in last year's renewal.
NEW YORK - The Grade 1, $300,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash and the other six stakes on its Fall Festival of Racing program puts Laurel Park in the national stakes spotlight Saturday. The other graded stakes on Saturday's national stakes schedule, each ranked Grade 3, are the $100,000 Stuyvesant Handicap at Aqueduct, the $150,000 Cardinal Handicap at Churchill Downs, and the $100,000 Hollywood Prevue.
De Francis Dash
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There are no stars in Saturday's Grade 3 Cardinal Handicap at Churchill Downs - which makes it a great race on which to wager. A field of 12, plus four also-eligibles, has been assembled, and in terms of top-to-bottom competitiveness, the race has to rank as one of the best wagering contests seen on the Kentucky circuit this year.
So which way to lean? Toward Delta Princess, a "value" mare whose odds should be a tick or two higher on the board than they should.
PHILADELPHIA - Back in pre-simulcast days, there were years when I did not miss a single race at the track I was following. When I lived in Maryland, I knew everything there was to know about Bowie, Laurel, Pimlico, and Timonium. Sometimes, that even helped me make money.
Without the tools available today, you could not afford to miss anything. If you missed it, you were not going to be able to make it up. The drill was: watch the race live through binoculars, watch the replay, get to the track early the next day to watch a second replay. That was it. You got what you got.
NEW YORK - It happens every year. Horses who were rated highly on anyone's list of preseason and early-season rankings are not among anyone's year-end choices for divisional Eclipse Awards. And that is because the course of every racing season includes detours that simply cannot be foreseen, due to injury, retirement, lack of development, and unfulfilled expectation.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The long faces were out in force as soon as Saint Liam crossed the wire in the Breeders' Cup Classic.
"The season is over," moaned the masses. "Now we have to go to Aqueduct for six months."
Uh, in case you haven't been watching the news recently, Aqueduct is looking pretty good these days.
ARCADIA, Calif. - When you are taking a stand against a favorite, sometimes you are going to be just plain wrong. Sometimes the best horse wins despite circumstances perceived as compromising.
It happened last weekend at Santa Anita, and would hardly merit repeating if it was an isolated incident. But it happened twice in two days - two wrong decisions for the same reason. Maybe the logic applied to the Grade 2 Las Palmas Handicap last Saturday and the $100,000 California Cup Distance Handicap on Sunday was flawed to begin with. Or, maybe not.
NEW YORK - The focus of racing in the coming months will switch to tracks in warmer climes. One of the first signs of this annual shift comes Saturday, when Calder Race Course presents Florida Million Day, a program including eight stakes events for Florida-breds worth $1.2 million, topped by the $200,000 Carl G. Rose Classic and the $200,000 Elmer Heubeck Distaff Handicap.
Jack Dudley Sprint Handicap
This is another stakes on the Florida Million card, and it is a great spot for Apalachian Thunder to boss his competition.
