The Cancelliere brothers are hoping they have a potential grand circuit horse in I’m Some Graduate. The 2-year-old pacing colt will compete in one of seven divisions of the International Stallion Stake at The Red Mile on Friday afternoon. Also in action are unbeaten pacers Pure Country and Travel Playlist.
An American-based winner of the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland on Oct. 31 will produce a longshot payoff. European-based runners are expected to dominate the betting in the richest turf race in the United States.
Lady Shipman has never run in a graded stakes, nor against males. And yet with one more powerhouse performance, the 3-year-old filly might well be the favorite when the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint is run at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
After briefly toying with the notion of running Private Zone in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, his connections have now all but decided on running the four-time Grade 1 winner in the Sprint, a race in which he is expected to go postward as the favorite over Rock Fall and Runhappy.
Longtime Woodbine owner and trainer Nick DeToro died suddenly on Monday at the age 88 of an apparent heart attack.
Trainer Richard Mandella is hoping Lucky Folie is good enough to run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and he will know about her when she tries turf for the first time in the Surfer Girl Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita.
ast Kiss was one of the leading 3-year-old fillies in Argentina and Brazil in the final months of 2014, a span in which she won a Group 1 race and was second and third in two others. Whether Last Kiss will compete at that level in the United States will be known to some extent when she makes her American debut for trainer Neil Drysdale in a second-level optional $62,500 claimer at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita on Friday.
Free: Santa Anita Horses to Watch for week of Oct. 5
The Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint is being run over 5 1/2 furlongs for the first time and few horses have accomplished more at the distance this year than Lady Shipman.
The return of Northern-based horsemen to south Florida in anticipation of the 2015-16 Gulfstream Park Championship Meet has already begun, with an influx of new faces who should have a major impact on the Gulfstream Park West session, which runs for the next eight weeks at the track formerly known as Calder Race Course.
