Doncho’s first act as a sprinter with star potential came on dirt, but the way he ran Saturday at Churchill Downs, Doncho’s ready for a leading role on turf.
Making his second start at age 5, Doncho ran what almost certainly was the best race of his life, beating the crack turf sprinter Joe Shiesty by three-quarters of a length in the $225,000 Mighty Beau Stakes. A neck behind Joe Shiesty came Troubleshooting, winner late last summer of the age-restricted Grade 1 Franklin-Simpson.
The trainer Brad Cox has gotten onto one of his Churchill Downs rolls. He’s won with four of his last six starters at the meet, pulling into a tie with Joe Sharp atop the trainer standings with 15 wins each.
Cox has two chances to win the featured eighth race Wednesday at Churchill. Two, though, might not be enough – not with Bullard to beat in this one-turn dirt mile, a second-level allowance with an $80,000 claiming option.
The countdown is on. Three weeks. Twelve racing days. That’s all that remains in the storied history of Aqueduct, a track that will cease racing operations following the completion of the June 28 program.
Racing returns here Thursday following the five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival in Saratoga that concluded Sunday. Over the next three weeks, nostalgia and turf racing will be dominant themes as 16 of the 29 races carded Thursday through Saturday are turf events.
The unbeaten Jr Shadow Boy is putting up the kind of Beyer Speed Figures that suggest he has a bright future. He will get his first test at the stakes level Wednesday in the $100,000 Sagamore Sired Handicap at Horseshoe Indianapolis.
The 5 1/2-furlong race for Indiana-sired 3-year-olds shares a card with its counterpart for 3-year-old fillies, the $100,000 Swifty Sired Handicap. Each race drew 13, with the maximum field size 12.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Cherie DeVaux may have had the best week of any trainer to run horses at Saratoga during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, but Mark Casse was a close second.
While DeVaux won two Grade 1s, highlighted of course by Golden Tempo’s victory in the $2 million Belmont Stakes, Casse won three Grade 1 stakes, and four stakes and five races overall.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A pair of dissimilar $100,000 stakes top the Thursday card at Santa Anita as the long winter-spring racing season meanders toward closing day. The meet ends on Sunday.
The first stakes race Thursday is the Desert Stormer, race 2, a filly and mare sprint. The second stakes, the Affirmed, race 8, is a route for 3-year-olds that includes a sprinter with a longshot chance to steal the first route of his brief career.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Minimum Forty hasn’t done much wrong in her three starts and should be odds-on in Thursday’s fifth race at Woodbine, a nonwinners-of-three sprint combining Ontario-sired allowance types with $40,000 claimers.
Minimum Forty made quite a splash when debuting on Nov. 22 of her sophomore season. After putting away the other speed in the six-furlong event, she drew off to score by 5 1/4 lengths while getting a 76 Beyer Speed Figure.
ARCADIA, Calif. – So Happy, the Santa Anita Derby winner who finished ninth in the Kentucky Derby, is taking a midseason break from the racetrack before he resumes training this summer at Del Mar.
“He’s getting a little break, he’s at the farm,” trainer Mark Glatt said Saturday. So Happy was recently shipped from Santa Anita to Trifecta Equine Athletic Center in North San Diego County.
Glatt expects So Happy to resume training after the Del Mar meet opens on July 17. “It’s a short break,” Glatt said. “He’ll be back during Del Mar.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Making his first start as a gelding, Grade-1 placed Iron Man Cal scored his first victory since 2024 on Sunday at Santa Anita. Runner-up in the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, Iron Man Cal won a deep second-level allowance on Sunday and may return to stakes this summer at Del Mar.
It is not often that a Grade 1-placed colt undergoes the ultimate equipment change, but trainer Phil D’Amato could see Iron Man Cal was going nowhere as a full horse. “Just a big, heavy horse and he had a little bit of hang to him,” D’Amato said after the Sunday allowance.
