The 5-year-old mare Integral will make her third consecutive appearance in the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes at a mile on turf for fillies and mares at Newmarket Racecourse in England on Saturday, a race she won last year.
Trainer Todd Pletcher will send out Ready Dancer Saturday at Belmont Park in a seemingly wide-open renewal of the Grade 1, $500,000 Champagne, which awards its winner a fees-paid berth into the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
No trainer has won more 2-year-old races in North America this year than Bret Calhoun, who will attempt to keep that momentum going Saturday night in the El Joven and La Senorita at Retama Park.
Going into the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga, the biggest question was whether Honor Code could be as effective around two turns as he’d proven to be around one. Going into the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic later this month at Keeneland, the question will be whether Honor Code can get 1 1/4 miles.Going into Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park, there is no question Honor Code will be the horse to beat against five rivals.
Jockey Flavien Prat was up and about just nine days after his Los Alamitos accident and in attendance for the Santa Anita opening weekend, wearing a back brace and a brave smile. When you’re a 23-year-old athlete, a little thing like five broken vertabrae and a punctured lung won’t keep you down for long.
Exaggerator and Uncle Vinny, the only two graded stakes winners in Saturday’s Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, are both trying two turns and 1 1/16 miles for the first time.
Midnight Storm takes a substantial class drop in Saturday’s $100,000 Eddie D Stakes at Santa Anita. It will be the first time he has run on the 6 1/2-furlong hillside turf course.
Masochistic can win his first Grade 1 race, and third stakes of 2015, on Saturday in the six-furlong Santa Anita Sprint Championship.
Tribal Drama will try to make his pappy, the Eclipse Award-winning Big Drama, proud when going postward the favorite in Saturday’s $500,000 In Reality, the final leg of the open division of the rich Florida Sire Series at Gulfstream Park.
Grade 2 winner Senor Swinger will relocate to La Mancha Farm in Ocala, Fla. for the 2016 breeding season, where he will stand for an advertised fee of $5,000.
