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Sunday proved the busiest morning yet on the Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby workout watch, with seven potential starters getting in their final major preps for the race.
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The brilliant sprinter Ka Ying Rising and the versatile Romantic Warrior set records with wins in Group 1 races at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong on Sunday.
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Bob Baffert sent two Kentucky Oaks entrants to the track to breeze Sunday morning at Churchill Downs. By 11 a.m., he had one prospect remaining for Friday’s race. While Explora turned in a solid five-furlong breeze that pleased her trainer, stablemate Bottle of Rouge coughed back at the barn following her own work and will be scratched.
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Bookie J put up a flawless performance on Saturday night at the Meadowlands, tracking down leader Thisbeestings Deo through a powerhouse stretch drive to the second of two $30,000 divisions of the New Jersey Home Grown for 3-year-old colts and geldings on the pace by 4 1/4 widening lengths.
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At long last the wait is over, and perhaps the latest in a long line of trotting queens is ready to rule over the older trotting division.
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The 4-year-old filly Take A Breath is showing this spring that she is an effective stayer and a miler in turf stakes at Santa Anita.
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Holding a top race for 3-year-old trotters in May has become tougher and tougher over time. Once the Hambletonian became worth $1 million and had a firm date of the first Saturday in August, trainers with prime candidates for the sport's biggest prize routinely waited to get into serious competition until June and sometimes later. While decent races were put on the calendar prior to the August date, quite often there was a lukewarm response in nominations and inevitably entries.
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The last two weeks at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, the far turn has been the biggest foe for the 3-year-old Always B Miki sophomore gelding Twin B Thriller. Last week, he suffered broken equipment nearing the stretch, then would go on to make an equipment break; in Saturday’s $50,000 Championship of the Bobby Weiss Pacing Series, his smoothness of gait on that curve might not have won him any points, but his grit and speed earned him $25,000 as he won the finale in 1:52 1/5 on a dank day and sloppy track.
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Queen’s Martini became a stakes winner in her two-turn debut Saturday when she edged Pronghorn by a nose in the $200,000 Dig a Diamond at Oaklawn Park.
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On a stacked 12-race card on Saturday at Gulfstream Park, including six statebred stakes, several high-profile Florida-breds found themselves right at home.
