Lady’s Golden Guy showed there was no rust on him when posting an impressive win in his 8-year-old debut at Finger Lakes. The veteran steps back up in class Monday in the $50,000 George W. Barker Stakes for New York-bred sprinters, the Memorial Day feature and first stakes of the season at Finger Lakes.
Ag Bullet ended her 2024 season nearly winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint over five furlongs and finishing a strong third in the Grade 1 Matriarch at one mile, but her 2025 campaign began with a whimper. Favored in the Grade 3 Unbridled Sidney Stakes on May 2 at Churchill Downs, Ag Bullet pulled a tough trip and couldn’t overcome it, finishing seventh.
Wesley Ward unveiled a serious 2-year-old for Royal Ascot on Friday at Churchill, where first-time starter Outfielder debuted in a five-furlong grass race and won by 6 1/4 lengths, barely asked for anything by jockey John Velazquez.
Outfielder, by Speightstown, contested a fast pace and still got his final furlong in a robust 11.45. Outfielder was sent off as the 1-5 favorite in a 10-horse field.
Trainer Mark Casse could find no excuse – other than, perhaps, a sloppy track – for 3-year-old filly La Cara’s ninth-place finish in the Kentucky Oaks.
No excuse was required earlier on the Oaks card for the Casse-trained 3-year-old turf filly Nitrogen, who won her fourth graded stakes race of 2025 with an easy score in the Edgewood.
Thorpedo Anna might return sometime in the coming months to Saratoga, where she won two Grade 1s last summer and nearly took down Fierceness in the Travers Stakes – but probably not next month.
Trainer Kenny McPeek said he’d nominated Thorpedo Anna to the Ogden Phipps on June 6 at Saratoga but is much more inclined to stay home at Churchill Downs and await the Fleur de Lis Stakes on June 28.
The larger point: Thorpedo Anna, after finishing last of seven May 2 as the 2-5 favorite in the La Troienne at Churchill, seems set to resume racing next month.
The lightly raced Mrs. Gambolini, who has shown a lot of talent in a short period of time, and the vastly more seasoned Great Venezuela will renew acquaintances and are strictly the horses to beat in Sunday’s main event at Gulfstream Park, a $70,000 overnight handicap for older fillies and mares to be decided at five furlongs on the turf.
The headliner is the fourth leg of a mandatory-payout Rainbow 6 sequence that begins with a very modest carryover after being hit for $185,237 last Sunday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Coming off a failed attempt to make the Kentucky Derby when he finished sixth in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial, Sand Devil will turn back in distance to prepare for the second half of his 3-year-old season when he runs in a first-level allowance going a one-turn mile Sunday at Aqueduct.
Rodriguez and Baeza both turned in serious workouts Friday morning at Santa Anita in preparation for scheduled starts in the $2 million Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 7.
Rodriguez, the Wood Memorial winner who scratched from the Kentucky Derby due to a foot issue, went seven furlongs in 1:24.80. Santa Anita clocker Dane Nelson caught Rodriguez’s first five furlongs in 59.60 seconds.
Lake Victoria raced five times at age 2 and won three Group 1s, the last of them the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar. Swelter raced once at age 2 and won a maiden race at Leopardstown. Yet there might not be much between the two fillies when they meet Sunday at The Curragh in the Irish 1000 Guineas.
Trainer Todd Pletcher is in no rush to commit to where he intends to run Mindframe next off his game victory earlier this month in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes. Nor was Mindframe himself in any real rush when he breezed for the first time since that outstanding performance, cruising an easy half-mile in 52.48 seconds in company with Candytown over a “fast” but dull Oklahoma training track in unseasonably cold weather Friday morning at Saratoga.
