Include Betty took the lead in upper stretch and drew off to score by 3 1/4 lengths despite looking around through the final furlong in Saturday's Mother Goose at Belmont Park.
Lopez, reunited with the 5-year-old I’m Already Sexy for the first time since they teamed up to win the Cooper City Handicap at Gulfstream Park in February, helped the mare upset 8-5 favorite Kenzadargent in Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth Park.
Surtsey relished the boggy turf course and won the $100,000 Zadracarta Stakes under a patient ride from Omar Moreno on Saturday at Woodbine.
Edge of Reality, whose last win on dirt came over a muddy surface in the Grade 3 Smarty Jones Stakes on Labor Day in 2013, caught a similar off-track Saturday and responded with a 3 3/4-length victory in the $75,000 Turning for Home Stakes at Parx Racing.
The 3-year-old filly Bold Cait reaffirmed her affinity for wet tracks when she rolled to an easy victory in the slop over older Ohio-bred fillies and mares in Saturday’s $75,000 J. William Petro Memorial Handicap at ThistleDown.
Jack Hobbs, second in the English Derby on June 6, was the dominant winner of Saturday’s $1,288,000 Irish Derby at The Curragh, giving trainer John Gosden a third classic win of the month.
How I’ll play Belmont on Sunday remains a work in progress, depending on the timing of whatever Mother Nature has in store for the Long Island area. At this writing, heavy rain and thunderstorms were forecast as a good bet to pummel the track starting sometime late afternoon or early evening Saturday, possibly lingering into Sunday morning. So it seems as though four scheduled turf races – the second, fourth, eighth, and ninth – are in serious jeopardy, while the main track could wind up a sealed and sloppy quagmire or a harrowed drying-out “good” depending on the timing of things.
Simon Bray, a TVG racing commentator and former trainer, has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma and will undergo treatment this summer, TVG producer Kevin Grigsby said Saturday.
Sleepy P (#1, ML 9-5) switches to turf for the first time in Saturday's fifth race at Woodbine, a one-mile maiden special weight race. Since Jan. 1, 2014, trainer Ashlee Brnjas is winning at a 41 percent clip with first-time turf starters, for a return on investment of $5.98.
Hammers Terror (#5, ML 5-1) is in good form and has the back class to suggest he can step up and contend in a weak Grade 2 turf stake, Saturday's eighth race at Churchill Downs, the Firecracker Stakes.
