Mohawk: Friday 9/25 Analysis
Garnet Barnsdale's analysis of the Friday 9/25 card at Mohawk Racetrack.
Garnet BarnsdaleSep 23, 2015
Garnet Barnsdale's analysis of the Friday 9/25 card at Mohawk Racetrack.
Undrafted and jockey Frankie Dettori will be partnered for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, trainer Wesley Ward said. The Grade 1, $1 million race will be run Oct. 31 at Keeneland.
American Pharoah already has swept the Triple Crown, Beholder already has won a pair of Eclipse Awards, and Honor Code likely has sewn up his first divisional title. One thing they’ve not already done, though, is race against one another, and that’s the most tantalizing aspect of this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic specifically and this year’s Breeders’ Cup in general.
Brewster Smith's analysis of the Friday 9/25 card at Yonkers Raceway.
One year ago Beholder was running in the Zenyatta Stakes, Shared Belief was in the headlines, and Victor Espinoza was voted off the show. Twelve months later and here is Beholder again in the Zenyatta Stakes, while Shared Belief is making news, and Victor Espinoza has been voted off another show.
Take your pick between Star of Dia and Perfect Night in a $25,000 conditional claiming race for 3-year-olds and up that will serve as the feature race at Emerald Downs on Friday night.
No Breeders’ Cup race has produced repeat winners like the Mile, and the 2014 hero, Karakontie, remains on track to make it six times that a winner has returned to score again the following season.
Songbird, the impressive winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante on Sept. 5, has scared away a few rivals for Saturday’s $300,000 Chandelier Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Santa Anita. Wednesday, trainers Richard Mandella and John Sadler indicated that fillies from their barns would skip the Chandelier in favor of the $70,000 Anoakia Stakes at six furlongs on Oct. 11.
Georgeanna Nugent Lussier, of Saratoga Springs, has been appointed to the New York Racing Association’s board of directors, replacing Rick Cotton.
Last year, Mewannarose got good at about the same time as Salutos Amigos, for whom he was no match in three consecutive stakes races. After tailing off in February and having problems in the spring, Mewannarose returns to the races Friday at Belmont Park in an attempt to return to his form of last fall.