Turfway’s winter-spring meet wraps up Sunday with a nine-race card to close out a largely successful season. The track raised its modest purses twice, and its Polytrack synthetic surface withstood a harsh winter.
A week removed from opening day Friday, the Keeneland barn area is beginning to fill up, and horses are prepping for upcoming races with breezes over the Keeneland dirt track. Fifty-four horses recorded works Friday at Keeneland, with horses from the stables of trainers Wesley Ward, Ian Wilkes, and Nick Zito particularly active.
Texas Red remains in light training with Keith Desormeaux after a persistent foot issue ended any hope of a start in a Triple Crown race for the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last November.
Trainer Bob Baffert has yet another promising older horse in his stable in Five Palms, who returned from a 15-month layoff to win a second-level optional $62,500 claimer at seven furlongs Thursday at Santa Anita.
Wise Dan, the 2012 and 2013 Horse of the Year, is making progress after a compression fracture to his right front cannon bone was diagnosed last fall but has not yet healed enough to resume jogging or galloping, according to trainer Charlie LoPresti.
Leading rider Rafael Bejarano took off his mounts on Friday after he was unseated in the gallop-out after Thursday’s first race at Santa Anita.
Driver Tony Morgan joined an elite club on Friday afternoon at Harrah’s Philadelphia. The 56-year-old picked up win No. 15,000 to become just the third driver in history to accomplish that lofty feat.
Competitive Edge made a stylish return to the races Friday at Gulfstream Park, striking the front soon after the start and galloping to an 8 1/4-length victory over previously undefeated Mr. Jordan in the $58,200 Tamarac Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
Trainer Shug McGaughey has taken the conservative route and entered All in Fun in Sunday’s $75,000 Sanibel Island Handicap for 3-year-old fillies on the turf.
In the year since the passing of Clarence Scharbauer Jr., the Valor Farm operation he founded in Pilot Point, Texas, has continued his legacy of producing quality horses.
