There is nothing surprising about where the top three finishers from last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile are training this winter. The victorious Texas Red is working at Santa Anita toward his 3-year-old debut, and the runner-up Carpe Diem and the third-place Upstart are gearing up in Florida, with the latter entered in Saturday’s Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream for his first start of 2015.
Publicist Mike Gathagan will be leaving the Maryland Jockey Club as of Feb. 2 to accept a position with the Maryland Catholic Conference.
Eblouissante, a half-sister to 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, has been retired from racing and will be bred to one of England’s leading stallions in coming months.
Trainer Justin Evans is looking forward to running Rousanne over longer distances, so he’s grateful for the bit of added real estate she will pick up Sunday in the $50,000 El Paso Times Handicap at Sunland Park.
Trainer Hugh Robertson hasn’t run many horses at this Fair Grounds meet, but they’re paying the bills.
In the track kitchen at Fair Grounds last Sunday, the morning after veteran jockey Jose Riquelme won the Louisiana Handicap on Hard Aces, he was accepting congratulations from other riders, agents, trainers, and others who work on the backstretch. His victory clearly was popular.
Jamie Osborne is not a masochist. Really, he’s not. He’s a nice guy with a properly droll British sense of humor who describes himself as an “overrated jockey and underrated trainer from sunny Upper Lambourn,” a horsey town located about 70 miles west of London.
Lil Bit O’Fun and Hay Dude finished second days apart at Santa Anita in late December and early January. Those turf races have led to starts in Sunday’s $75,000 Clocker’s Corner Stakes and give trainer Phil D’Amato a formidable pair of runners.
Four allowance races for New York-breds are sprinkled throughout Sunday’s nine-race offering at Aqueduct, with split divisions of a second-level optional $40,000 claimer at a mile and 70 yards topping the program. Trainer Bruce Brown has runners in each division with Towering Moon, making his second start off a layoff – and second since being gelded – running in race 6, and Royal Posse, running as a gelding for the first time, entered in race 8.
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