Stays in Vegas has talent edge in Wine Country Debutante
Stays in Vegas’s monster debut win in a stakes last month makes her an overwhelming favorite in Friday’s $50,000 Wine Country Debutante at Santa Rosa.
Michael HammerslyAug 12, 2015
Stays in Vegas’s monster debut win in a stakes last month makes her an overwhelming favorite in Friday’s $50,000 Wine Country Debutante at Santa Rosa.
Laurel Park has scheduled Maryland Pride Day on Aug. 22, closing weekend of its summer meet.
Dear Lilly appreciated the class relief when she quit chasing the top older fillies and mares at Hastings and dropped into and won a $25,000 optional-claiming race going 6 1/2 furlongs on July 18. She will try to repeat when she comes back in a similar spot Friday night, and the horse she may have to beat is her stablemate Summit Central.
At last count, King Leatherbury’s big numbers were 35,767 starters and 6,458 winners, fourth all-time. The “big” horse came last. All King did with Ben’s Cat was what he has been doing for almost 60 years – found races the horse could win and kept putting the now 9-year-old in those races over and over again. Training horses is a complicated business, but if you don’t have management skills, you have little chance. King T. was and remains a textbook example of how to manage a racing stable.
It’s the nature of the claiming game that horses come into a barn and can quickly go, but trainer Peter Miller had grown quite attached to Nextdoorneighbor, who was claimed away from him Saturday after eight races and six victories.
“He’s as good as he’s ever been,” said Ron Burke about Foiled Again, the 5-2 morning line favorite for Friday’s $300,000 Dan Patch at Hoosier Park. The 11-year-old phenom has only won once in 2015, but that doesn’t diminish his stature or how his trainer sees him.
The absence of Lady Eli, who is recovering from laminitis, certainly leaves Friday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga a wide-open affair, even if only five 3-year-old fillies are likely to run in the 1 1/8-mile turf race.
Whitney Handicap winner Honor Code’s first trip back to the track on Friday morning was a bit more exciting than anticipated. The colt was on the Oklahoma training track as another horse ran loose for several minutes before being apprehended in the stable area.
Keen Ice continued his preparations for the Grade 1 Travers Stakes, to be run Aug. 29, with another strong gallop Wednesday morning here.
Had she arrived a little sooner this summer, Princess Charm might have run in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks on Saturday. Races of that caliber, at least on these shores, will have to wait at least one start, though, because Princess Charm is going to take a more conservative route for her United States debut.