Daily handle up 10.2 percent at Fair Grounds meet
After a fairly dismal 2013-14 racing season, betting, as well as the racing product in general, rebounded during the 2014-15 race meet at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
Marcus HershApr 07, 2015
After a fairly dismal 2013-14 racing season, betting, as well as the racing product in general, rebounded during the 2014-15 race meet at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
Trainer Simon Callaghan has always considered the 3-year-olds fillies Desert Steel and Windy Forecast prospects for turf sprints, but with such opportunities rare for 2-year-olds, neither has run on grass.
Something will have to give when a trio of undefeated 3-year-olds put their records on the line going in Thursday’s $34,000 main event at Gulfstream Park.
Dayatthespa, already winner of the Eclipse Award as North America’s champion turf female of last year, was named New York’s 2014 Horse of the Year on Monday during the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc. annual awards banquet.
Historical-racing machines at Les Bois Park in Boise, Idaho, will remain operational due to a veto by Gov. Butch Otter on Monday of a bill that would have prohibited the devices.
Horses to watch from Woodbine Harness.
Without the use of the turf course and with a depleted horse population, New York Racing Association officials carded only eight races for Thursday and Friday at Aqueduct. Thursday’s card has one $70,000 maiden special weight for fillies and mares at a mile, otherwise the richest race on the program is for $40,000 claimers running for a pot of $55,000.
Rain was in the forecast for this region every day from Tuesday through Friday, so severity and timing will determine whether turf races at Keeneland during that span will have to be transferred to the main track or not. Ken Ramsey is hoping the weather is spotty enough for a high-end allowance to remain on the grass Thursday. The perennial leading owner at Keeneland has a stable coupling in the richest race of the afternoon, a $68,000, classified turf mile carded as the first of four allowances on a nine-race program.
A lot has been expected from Carpe Diem since before he ever raced, owing to his $1.6 million purchase price as a 2-year-old in training. He has lived up to expectations.
The bet-processing company AmTote has filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract and intellectual-property theft against Kentucky Downs and a company associated with the track over the operation of Kentucky Downs’s historical-racing betting machines.