Hovdey: A stakes shower comes before the storm

While the clock ticks down to the Most Important Belmont Stakes Ever Run on June 6, let’s pause to go once around the horn for this Saturday’s more modest menu of very good racing. All posts noted in Eastern Daylight Time, which is only right:

4:18 p.m. – The $100,000 Aristides honors the memory of the horse who won a 1 1/2-mile race and a purse of $2,850 at a track in Louisville, Ky., on May 17, 1875. The track was later called Churchill Downs, and the race became known as the Kentucky Derby, which is, of course, why the Aristides is a sprint for older horses.

Work All Week, last year’s sprint champion, is making his first start of the season in the Aristides and his first since defeating Secret Circle and Private Zone in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint seven months ago. Work All Week was 19-1 that day, but apparently it was far from a fluke. Secret Circle went on to take the 2015 Golden Shaheen in Dubai, while Private Zone countered with wins in the 2014 Cigar Mile and the Churchill Downs Stakes on Derby Day.

Still, there is never a running of the Aristides that does not trip memories of the 2006 running. Lost in the Fog, the reigning sprint champ at the time, cruised to a 1 1/4-length win over Kelly’s Landing, who would go on to win the 2007 Golden Shaheen. That was Lost in the Fog’s 11th victory in 13 starts, but he ran only once more, in the Smile Stakes at Calder, and finished ninth. It was not long afterward that malignant tumors were discovered along Lost in the Fog’s spine and internal organs. He was euthanized Sept. 17, 2006.

5:28 p.m. – Pennine Ridge, a son of Cure the Blues, won the 1994 Hill Prince and Jamaica for 3-year-olds on the Belmont Park turf, which is why the $200,000 Pennine Ridge Stakes is offered to 3-year-olds on the Belmont turf. Also, he was owned by former New York Racing Association chairman of the board Allan Dragone, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

Divisidero makes the Pennine Ridge worth watching after his bang-zoom score from far back in the American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs on Derby Day. Chad Brown is there to greet him with Startup Nation and Chief Kitten, while Barclay Tagg will find out if Rock Eagle is as good as his maiden win over the same ground May 9 has led the trainer to believe. The first two finishers get invitations to come back and play in the $1.25 million Belmont Derby (formerly the Jamaica) in July.

5:30 p.m. – Brown’s head will be on a swivel about now since he’s also got two of the six fillies running at Santa Anita in the $400,000 American Oaks, Mrs McDougal and Consumer Credit. This is a Grade 1 event rescued from the Hollywood Park rubble but now clinging to relevance, ever more surrounded by competition for the same limited talent pool of 3-year-old fillies who want to run a stern 1 1/4 miles in May.

Richard Baltas trains the likely favorite, Honeymoon Stakes winner Spanish Queen, but he must feel like he’s shipped somewhere east. Besides Brown’s pair, there are fillies from the stables of Todd Pletcher (Feathered) and Al Stall (Dating Lady Luck). Other than Sharla Rae, the Honeymoon runner-up trained by Doug O’Neill, the rest of the West Coast is sadly missing.

7 p.m. – There is no sense in reviving the lament over the lost history of the Californian, but at least we have our memories. Those who feel the same way about the Brooklyn, the Suburban, the Pimlico Special, and the Widener can feel our pain. Now the race is just another prep for something else – in this case, the Gold Cup at Santa Anita – run at the increasingly mundane distance of 1 1/8 miles.

At least this version of the Californian attracted a star, which is hard to do for $200,000. The figure represents a considerable pay cut for Moreno, the 2014 Whitney winner who was last seen mopping up the mess in the $1.5 million Charles Town Classic that the injury to Shared Belief left behind. Moreno has been firing on all cylinders this season and will need to be on his game again to handle Grade 3 Precisionist winner Catch a Flight. They finished together in second and third, well behind Shared Belief, in the Santa Anita Handicap in March.

7:22 p.m. – For $500,000 in casino cash, they have come from far and wide to run a lickety-split two turns around a seven-furlong course in Penn National’s Penn Mile. These are difficult races to both decipher and ride, encumbered by the vagaries of post position and a first turn that comes up very fast. That did not stop owners and trainers from sending 11 of their 3-year-olds from New York, Maryland, Florida, Kentucky, and California. Did I mention the $500,000?

There is no tout here, although California stakes winner Papacoolpapacool is turning into a very consistent lad, and the stakes-placed Comanche’s Storm appears to be trained for the moment. The entries also include a pair of geldings named Tuba and Woodwin W, which is close enough.