The road hasn’t been easy for Mission Brief, but she officially stamped herself as a force to be reckoned with by winning Sunday’s $185,000 Zweig for 3-year-old fillies on the trot at Vernon Downs. A possible candidate to face the boys in the Hambletonian on August 8 at the Meadowlands, she stole the show from Pinkman, who captured the $370,000 open division.
Gutaifan extended his winning streak to three races with a victory in Sunday’s $143,000 Prix Robert Papin at Maisons-Laffitte Racecourse, one of the first major stakes of the year for 2-year-olds in France.
Ron Gierkink's horses to watch at Woodbine for the week of July 26.
Trainer Wayne Catalano on Sunday said he plans to run Top Clearance in next Sunday’s Grade 1 Haskell Invitational, bringing the number of probable rivals for Triple Crown winner American Pharoah to six.
The connections of Magna Light plan to appeal the stewards’ decision to disqualify that horse from first place in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga.
Moonist, the 2014 champion 3-year-old Quarter Horse, won his first six-figure stakes of the year in Saturday’s $100,000 Spencer Childers Handicap for California-breds at Los Alamitos.
Princess Charm, a Group 3 winner in France in March, has joined trainer John Sadler’s stable and is a candidate for the $300,000 Del Mar Oaks on Aug. 15.
Fresh off an impressive maiden score, Conquest Pacemaker went right to the front and never looked back to take the $131,500 Toronto Cup Stakes at Woodbine on Sunday.
Catch a Flight has won three graded stakes for older horses in Southern California since early May, including Saturday’s $200,500 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar.
At a meet like Saratoga, where there are so many competitive races and everyone’s trying to win, experience has taught me that it is best not to split hairs between several closely matched horses. Instead, I take my cue from Steve Fierro’s fine book “The Four Quarters of Horse Investing” and simply construct betting lines where contenders get 79 to 81 percentage points (see the odds percentage table in the American Racing Manual), allowing about 20 percent or so for the random results that no amount of study could foresee.
