Any lingering doubts trainer Todd Pletcher might have had about whether Daredevil would like the grass were erased on Friday morning when the Grade 1 winner turned in a sparkling half-mile drill with jockey Javier Castellano aboard over the Oklahoma turf course.
With a four-win Thursday – half the eight-race card – jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. moved to within three victories, 44-41, of leading rider Mitchell Murrill at the Arlington meet.
Unbeaten in three 2015 starts, Masochistic won graded stakes in April and June at Santa Anita in consecutive starts to become the leader of the California sprint division. Those wins will make Masochistic a heavy favorite to win Sunday’s $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs at Del Mar.
The catalog for the 2015 Washington Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association is now available online, featuring 114 entries.
Hammersly: Del Mar pick three play for Saturday, July 25
Samuel Dechamplain has seen a dramatic reversal of form since getting back on the Woodbine turf course and will look to keep it going in Sunday’s $125,000 Toronto Cup Stakes for 3-year-olds over 1 1/8 miles.
eam Valor International and trainer Graham Motion will have their first starter together in more than two years when English import Affileo starts in the first division of the Little Silver Stakes at Monmouth Park on Sunday.
The Grade 2 Lake George for 3-year-old fillies, now slated to go off with a field of 10 following the scratches of longshots Lady Zuzu and My Year Is a Day, is an intriguing handicapping puzzle with plenty of room for argument.
The first graded stakes race of the 2015 Saratoga meeting comes early this year, with the Grade 3 Schuylerville being run Friday as the fourth race at 2:39 p.m. Eastern. The Schuylerville is the first of three graded stakes at the meeting for 2-year-old fillies, followed by the Grade 2 Adirondack on Aug. 15 and the Grade 1 Spinaway on Sept. 5.
Bold Cait, a dominant winner in restricted stakes in each of her first two starts around two turns, towers over her opponents in Sunday’s $75,000 Queen City Oaks for Ohio-bred 3-year-old fillies at Belterra Park.
