Trainer Stanley Gold found himself in unfamiliar territory after Friday’s second race – not in the winner’s circle. The Gold-trained Good Genes finished second behind runaway winner Moment Is Right in the maiden special weight dash for 2-year-olds.
There is speed galore in holiday Monday’s $125,000 Ballade Stakes at Woodbine, and the six-furlong sprint could set up for a stalker or closer such as Dancing Ashley.
It’s a stakes-less Sunday at Belmont, and in a warm-up of sorts for the Big Apple Showcase card scheduled for Memorial Day, all five non-claiming races are for New York-breds.
Noosito has won four stakes races in his brief career but never has faced a field as daunting as the one he will meet Sunday in the $50,000 Governor’s Handicap at Emerald Downs. In making his first start against older horses, Noosito will face nine rivals that have combined for 13 stakes victories and more than $1.4 million in earnings.
Tiny Giant, the Alberta-bred Horse of the Year and champion sprinter, will make his 2015 debut Monday in the $50,000 Journal Handicap at Northlands Park.
Chris Rohrbach may eventually find this game is not that easy. But is sure seemed that way after Rohrbach won with the first horse he saddled, Sylviasgivenangel, here on May 3.
When Sunday’s scheduled Lagerhead Key overnight stakes failed to fill, the afternoon’s main event became an entry-level optional-claiming race, which drew a field of seven fillies and mares going a mile and one-sixteenth on the turf for a $40,000 purse.
Two undefeated fillies, including fastest qualifier Walk Thru Crystal, are part of a field of 10 juveniles in Sunday’s $294,500 Kindergarten Futurity for Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos.
Warren’s Veneda, third as a heavy favorite in the Grade 1 Vanity Stakes at Santa Anita on May 9, has resumed training and could start in the $1 million Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park on June 6.
Big Macher, the former maiden claimer who won the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar last summer, will have his next start in the $827,715 Diamond Jubilee Stakes for turf sprinters at Royal Ascot in England on June 20.
