Jockey C.J. McMahon has such a commanding lead in the Lone Star Park standings that he will win the track’s riding title on Sunday even though he will miss the final three dates of the meet. McMahon entered the final week of racing with a 49-win advantage over his fellow jockeys.
The featured seventh race on Friday at Arlington promises plenty of speed. The two-turn turf race over 1 1/16 miles open to second-level allowance horses or $40,000 claimers drew eight entrants, and no fewer than four of them would be properly placed on the front-end.
While the best 3-year-old turf filly in the country fights the good fight against laminitis, two of her stablemates will try to prove themselves worthy of competing in stakes for 3-year-old turf fillies later this summer when they run in a first-level allowance race Friday at Belmont Park.
Garnet Barnsdale's analysis of the Friday 7/17 card at Mohawk Racetrack.
Rock and Glory is clearly the horse to beat and will be a very short price to win the $50,000 Madamoiselle Handicap at Northlands Park Friday. The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares drew six horses, none more interesting than Fingers Crossed, who races for one of the most prestigious owners in horse racing, Godolphin Racing LLC.
The weather has turned hot in south Louisiana, and so has apprentice Ashley Broussard. The spunky 22-year-old visited the winner’s circle all four days last week, including a riding double on Saturday’s program.
Clyde Francis has worked with George Teague Jr. for nearly two decades, but until this year was not much in the public eye. That has changed with Francis being the trainer of Teague’s 3-year-old male pacer Wiggle It Jiggleit, who is the favorite in Saturday’s $706,000 Crawford Farms Meadowlands Pace at the Meadowlands.
Southern California racetracks and horsemen’s organizations have yet to reach an agreement on 2016 racing dates, an issue scheduled to be discussed at Friday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting in Del Mar.
Calculator, who finished second to American Pharoah in the Del Mar Futurity last summer and went on to win the Sham Stakes this past January, is back in training after being sent to the sidelines earlier this year.
American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, galloped about 1 1/4 miles Wednesday morning at Del Mar, his second morning on the track after arriving in the wee hours on Tuesday.
