Trainer Linda Rice has been pleased with the progress that multiple Grade 1 winner Palace has made since returning to her barn, so much so that she nominated him to the Grade 1 Carter, to be run on April 4.
North Slope, winner of the Evening Attire Stakes in his last start, worked four furlongs in 49.63 seconds Friday morning over the Belmont Park training track in preparation for a start in the $100,000 Stymie Stakes at Aqueduct on March 22.
When a young jockey wins his or her first race, it is a cherished custom of the profession that all manner of indignities are heaped upon them. Depending on the level of sadism in a particular jockeys’ room, the hazing substances deployed might include ice water, eggs, shaving cream, vaseline, mustard, ketchup, and both kinds of relish, along with a generous dusting of baby powder and a finishing coat of black shoe polish. When a young jockey wins his or her first Grade 1 race, as Eclipse Award winner Drayden Van Dyke did last weekend at Santa Anita Park, the initiation ceremony is somewhat more subdued.
Conspicuous by her absence from Sunday’s $100,000 Cicada Stakes at Aqueduct is trainer Michelle Nevin, who has two graded-stakes-winning 3-year-old fillies in her barn that might have looked pretty tough in that spot.
In a perfect world, trainer Rick Violette would have run Noble and a Beauty around two turns by now. In the imperfect world that is horse racing, Noble and a Beauty will be making her third start sprinting in Sunday’s $100,000 Cicada Stakes at Aqueduct.
Unrivaled, a 15-length maiden winner at Parx Racing in his last start, was purchased by the Team Valor stable of Barry Irwin this week and is being pointed to an allowance race Sunday at the Bensalem, Pa., track.
The 16-runner field was gathered at the start of Friday’s $825,000 Cheltenham Gold Cup when jockey Paddy Mullins revealed his race tactics to fellow rider Nico de Boinville.
There are all sorts of intriguing multi-race exotic possibilities on Saturday’s card at Gulfstream, but I find the early pick four especially appealing.
With an abundance of older female turf runners in his barn, and only so many places to run them, Chad Brown has sent Rosalind and Testa Rossi all the way from Florida to California for the Grade 2, $200,000 Santa Ana Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita.
Fatality rates at tracks participating in an industry-maintained database were virtually unchanged in 2014 compared to 2013, according to figures released Friday by The Jockey Club, and synthetic starts continued last year to show the lowest fatality rate by far among the three racing surfaces in use at North American tracks.
