Although Charlie’s Wish has raced exclusively on turf and Tapeta over the past eight months, she had much of her early success on dirt. She will finally return to that surface when facing six rivals, including likely favorite Indy Bay, in Sunday’s $71,000 main event at Gulfstream Park.
The headliner is the third of three allowance/optional-claiming races on the program and is carded at seven furlongs for fillies and mares.
Aidan O’Brien, unsurprisingly, will be expected to add to his unparalleled record of success in Group 1 Irish races when he sends out two heavily favored runners Sunday at The Curragh.
True Love as of Friday was even money with English betting houses to give O’Brien his 12th win in the Irish 1000 Guineas.
O’Brien also is the winning-most trainer in the history of the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup. He has 11 of those, too, and the filly Minnie Hauk is an even shorter price than True Love to capture that race.
The Arkansas Racing Commission on Thursday unanimously approved Oaklawn Park’s racing calendar for next season. In changes, the meet will mostly be comprised of three-day race weeks instead of last season’s four, and will start in November rather than December.
Oaklawn was approved for a 65-date meet from Nov. 27, 2026, through May 1, 2027.
Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse ventured to Oaklawn Park from his Florida base with a large division of runners this past meet and said plans are to return to the Hot Springs, Ark., track. The meet closed May 2.
“I’m already looking forward to next season,” Casse said.
Casse swept in and won two of the four Kentucky Derby points races at Oaklawn, taking the Smarty Jones with Strategic Risk and the Grade 3, $1 million Southwest with Silent Tactic.
Brad Cox on Thursday afternoon confirmed what he’d hinted at last week – Kentucky Oaks fourth-place finisher Prom Queen runs next in the Grade 1 Acorn at Saratoga.
“She breezed great this morning. She’s a go for the Acorn,” Cox said.
Doublecents, who put up one of the meet’s highest Beyer Speed Figures for a 3-year-old this past season at Oaklawn Park, has a summer stakes objective at Churchill Downs, according to his trainer, Brett Creighton.
He would like to make the Grade 3, $250,000 Maxfield, a seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds on June 28.
But before then, Creighton would like to run Doublecents and on Friday he entered him in a first-level allowance that will be run May 29 at Churchill.
Since hitting a stratospheric career zenith winning the Kentucky Derby, trainer Cherie DeVaux has gone pretty quiet. Since Golden Tempo’s last-to-first Derby triumph May 2, DeVaux has sent out only six starters. All raced at Churchill Downs, and other than Spare Me, 10th in a May 14 turf-sprint maiden, all have run respectably. Supercharger, in fact, ran quite well winning a maiden turf route on May 9.
“We just have a lot of 2-year-olds getting going right now,” DeVaux said Friday. “We’re in a little lull, but we have a lot of entries this weekend.”
Two weeks after he cruised to an easy win in a maiden race for California-breds on turf, Matt At Five has a similar assignment in a six-furlong allowance race for statebreds on grass at Santa Anita on Sunday.
On May 10, Matt At Five won his first start on turf at 3-5, stalking the early pace before pulling clear by 3 1/4 lengths. Trainer Peter Miller envisions Matt At Five having a comparable journey against five rivals on Sunday.
“I think he enjoyed tracking the other day,” Miller said.
In 1994, the 4-year-old filly Angel Katy switched to hurdles near the end of her racing career and scampered home a 37-length winner in a $5,000 maiden-claiming race at Fair Hill. In doing so, she might have made history.
Trained by Larry Smith and owned by Nathan Scherr, Angel Katy began her career as a dirt sprinter before stretching out on the dirt and turf. In her last three months on the track, Smith tried her over hurdles. The Maryland-bred stayed at home for much of her career and earned nine victories in 47 starts.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Next Pitch will try to hit it out of the park in Sunday’s Woodbine headliner for non-winners of three, a seven-furlong sprint that combines Ontario-sired allowance types with $40,000 claimers.
A homebred trained by John LeBlanc Jr., Next Pitch cleared the non-winners of two Ontario-sired allowance condition second time out last year going 6 1/2 furlongs. He went on to run competitively at this non-three level, capping his season with a troubled third on Sept. 7.
