Hurricane Bertie highlights calm before storm
With the next huge day of racing at Gulfstream set for Feb. 21, the only stakes here next weekend is the Grade 3, $150,000 Hurricane Bertie on Saturday.
Marty McGeeFeb 06, 2015
With the next huge day of racing at Gulfstream set for Feb. 21, the only stakes here next weekend is the Grade 3, $150,000 Hurricane Bertie on Saturday.
Turfway Park has raised overnight purses for its winter-spring meet by $500 per race and by adding a race Sundays, reflecting an approximate 10 percent increase to its non-stakes purses. The increase, which began Jan. 30, came in response to higher-than-forecast handle generated by full fields, general manager Chip Bach said.
Dave Kassen was as surprised as everyone else when Celebrity Star rolled home a six-length winner at 28-1 in a first-level allowance race Thursday at Gulfstream Park.
In the 1967 Woodward Stakes at Aqueduct, Frank Whiteley Jr. used Hedevar as a rabbit to force Dr. Fager to use up too much of his great speed and thus ensure a very fast pace so that his come-from-behind champ Damascus would have a much better chance to win, which, as everyone knows, is exactly how the race developed.
As Gulfstream Park was experiencing the most successful year in its history, handling $1.2 billion in wagers during 2014, its parent company gave track president Tim Ritvo an additional task. It asked him to revive Thoroughbred racing in Maryland.
Nine 3-year-old fillies will be running Sunday in a turf allowance serving in a prep for next month’s Allen LaCombe Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds.
Much of the focus for this card will be on the big stakes action later in the day, but some good-sized competitive fields make an early pick three (races 2-4) more than a little attractive as you await the epic clash of California Chrome and Shared Belief.
City of Weston, an earner of nearly $480,000, and C. Zee, runner-up to Work All Week in the Phoenix Stakes last fall at Keeneland, are the principals in a field of seven older horses in race 7, a $52,000, third-level allowance with a $100,000 claiming option.
Heritage Place, a premiere Quarter Horse auction house in Oklahoma City that introduced a Thoroughbred sale three years ago, is making some changes to that auction. The Thoroughbred sale will be expanded to include a yearling session for 2015, while the auction will be held more than two months earlier than usual, on Oct. 4.
I’m going to start this 13-race marathon by tying together a couple of singles in the first pick three of the day: TUMMINIA (2) as the most likely winner and favorite in race 1 and NUN THE LESS (1), a fresh returnee who gets Jose Lezcano and might well get a nice ground-saving trip before capitalizing on a torrid pace in race 3.