When the 3-year-old War Story fell $4,000 short of reaching his $549,000 reserve at the recent Fasig-Tipton July horses of racing age sale in Lexington, Ky., it hardly upset the horse’s Dallas-based co-owner, Ron Paolucci.
Tuesday morning marked the first time horses could get on the Del Mar grass course this summer, and it had plenty of activity, with 31 workouts, including by Bronzo and Winning Prize, both of whom are being considered by trainer Neil Drysdale for the $400,000 Eddie Read Stakes on Saturday, the first Grade 1 race of the meet.
Thursday’s opening day of the Del Mar summer meeting marks the completion of a hectic 10-day span when the racetrack property is transformed from the home of the San Diego County Fair to the venue of the most popular race meeting in the West. Track officials hope the hectic moments will be over when racing starts.
Two jockeys in Louisiana will remain suspended indefinitely until the state’s racing commission and local police finish investigating the circumstances surrounding a race run on June 19 at Evangeline Downs, state officials have said recently.
The 22-year-old French jockey Flavien Prat won 19 races at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. He finished fifth in the standings at the spring-summer meeting there with 25 wins. That won’t be good enough at Del Mar, he said on a recent morning between workouts at Santa Anita.
Another promising filly from the north is en route to South Florida.
On the surface of things, there’s quite a few changes afoot – and underfoot – at Del Mar. For the first time since 2006, this track will race on dirt, the controversial Polytrack era having ended after the fall meeting last November.
American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, on Tuesday morning had his first tour of the Del Mar track since last summer, but he’ll see plenty more of this place, which is expected to be his home for most of the summer.
Owner Chip McEwen and his horse Uncle Sigh are both on the comeback trail. For McEwen, the road back has many miles to go before it’s complete. On April 23, McEwen suffered from cardiac arrest and initially doctors gave him a one percent chance of survival, but nearly three months later, McEwen, 52, is still defying the doctors’ early prognosis.
A bit ambitiously placed at times, Scarly Charly looks well-spotted to win a race Thursday when he heads a field of five entered in an $85,000 third-level allowance race that serves as the feature at Belmont Park.
