Watch your back. It’s what most of the fillies and mares in the Grade 3, $100,000 Bayakoa at Oaklawn Park will have to do Sunday as prolific closer Mufajaah seeks her second straight stakes win.
Holy Lute will have his first start in a Grade 1 race in more than a year in the $400,000 Frank Kilroe Mile on turf at Santa Anita on March 7, a decision reached after the 5-year-old won an optional claimer on Thursday.
In his 35 years training horses, Gary Sciacca has won 853 races, including four Grade 1 stakes, and has campaigned a champion. But the one-length victory by Saratoga Snacks in Thursday’s $69,000 New York-bred allowance feature at Aqueduct rivals any of those previous feats.
Trainer David Jacobson called an audible Friday morning and decided not to enter Salutos Amigos in the $250,000 General George Handicap on Monday at Laurel Park.
Palace Malice, the winner of the 2013 Belmont Stakes and the 2014 Metropolitan Handicap, was scheduled to arrive Friday at Todd Pletcher’s barn at the Palm Beach Downs training center following an overnight van ride from South Carolina.
When reviewing any wager, I always think I could have done better. If I make a score, the first question I ask is, “Could I have made more money?” It’s not greed – it’s just me wanting to maximize opportunities (and, okay, perhaps a little bit of greed). There are times I make a bad bet, review it, and say to myself: “What was I thinking?”
Career plans for Bench Warrant and No Problem may be better known after Sunday’s $75,000 Baffle Stakes at about 6 1/2 furlongs on Santa Anita’s hillside turf course. The Baffle Stakes will be the turf stakes debut for both runners, who will be the two leading choices in the betting in a field of nine 3-year-olds.
The 3-year-old filly Mizz Money, who led all the way to defeat the favored Divine Dawn by three-quarters of a length in a turf allowance at about 7 1/2 furlongs last Sunday at Fair Grounds, likely will run next in the Allen LaCombe Memorial on March 7, trainer Bernie Flint said.
Hard Aces, a 5-year-old who became a stakes winner in a four-length romp in the Louisiana Handicap on Jan. 17, is being sold by Dreamchaser Thoroughbreds and will be sent to the California barn of trainer John Sadler, Larry Jones said Friday.
With more frigid temperatures accompanied by high winds in the forecast, Sunday’s nine-race card at Aqueduct is very much in jeopardy of being canceled. If it is not, the main event will be a $59,000 New York-bred second-level optional claimer, featuring the 10-year-old debut of Writingonthewall.
