Trainer Cal Lynch said he's been looking for a reason to keep El Areeb in the barn this month as he originally planned. But the colt is doing so well that Lynch is running him Saturday in the Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.
I'm going with Gunnevera to turn the tables on Irish War Cry in Saturday's Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
The track and distance are the same but the potential race shape quite different for Irish War Cry, who will look to enhance his brightening Kentucky Derby hopes when he heads the field in the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes for 3-year-olds.
Churchill Downs Inc. would consider installing so-called historical racing machines at its Louisville, Ky., racetrack if a machine could be designed that was “competitive” with the more traditional slot machines offered at casinos in nearby Indiana, the company’s chief operating officer said Wednesday.
A field of 11 3-year-olds passed the Gulfstream Park entry box Wednesday afternoon for the 71st running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes, which will be run here Saturday as a key stepping-stone toward the 143rd Kentucky Derby.
To note that trainer Mike Maker is running stakes horses most everywhere Saturday would not be an overstatement. Besides starting horses at his principal winter base at Gulfstream Park, he has a pair of runners in Keystoneforvictory and High Noon Rider racing in Barbados, and five horses entered in Saturday evening's $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park.
Chad Brown has won Breeders' Cup races, trained Eclipse Award winners, and he got his first Eclipse Award as champion trainer earlier this year. What he doesn't have is a Triple Crown race win. His best shot this year likely is with Practical Joke, who begins his 3-year-old campaign on Saturday in the Fountain of Youth.
Classic Empire, who missed a work when an abscess popped out the heel of his right front hoof days after his third-place finish in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream last month, is back galloping at Palm Meadows.
The setbacks incurred by both Classic Empire and McCraken in recent weeks here in South Florida give them the opportunity for just one more prep for the May 6 Kentucky Derby, and as of Wednesday there was a real possibility both could wind up in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 8.
Kentucky Derby: Who's hot, who's not for March 3
