After setting a track record in her Woodbine Oaks victory on Sunday, Academic will be pointed toward the $1 million Queen’s Plate on July 5 for her next start, trainer Reade Baker said.
Trainer Chad Brown worked his usual arsenal of turf horses Sunday morning at Belmont Park, but Lady Eli was not among them.
California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, is likely to be scratched from Wednesday’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot because of an abscess in his right front foot.
On the precipice of a professional milestone, trainer David Jacobson has gone into a slump. Jacobson, the leading trainer in terms of wins on the New York Racing Association circuit the last three years, enters Wednesday one win away from 1,000 for his career.
With less than eight weeks remaining until the Hambletonian, the sport’s most prestigious race, the stage is being set for a major record to be broken. No one has more top quality sophomores than Jimmy Takter and the trainer is clearly focused on the prize. “I think I’ll have four or five for the Hambletonian,” he said on Saturday (June 13)
Noble Bird earned the first Grade 1 victory of his career in Saturday night’s Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs, holding off Lea in a furious stretch rally. The Foster was the first Win and You’re In qualifying race toward the Breeders’ Cup Classic, to be contested Oct. 31 at Keeneland. With Noble Bird now targeting the major summer stakes en route to the fall event, sire Birdstone, standing at Gainesway in Lexington, Ky., is poised for a solid season.
In his 2015 debut, odds-on favorite Stryker Phd raced to a narrow victory Sunday in the $50,000 Budweiser Handicap – his fifth consecutive stakes victory at Emerald Downs.
American Pharoah resumed training Monday morning at Churchill Downs with a 1 3/8-mile gallop that reaffirmed the colt has emerged from his Triple Crown sweep in good order.
Trip Notes for June 13: Poker, Stephen Foster, Adoration, and more by Michael Hammersly.
Three-year-old trotting fillies Barn Doll ($4.30) and Katniss ($8.50) employed similar tactics toward victory in their $12,500 Empire Breeders Classic eliminations on Sunday (June 14) afternoon, taking charge at the halfway stage and holding clear late in decisive fashion.
