HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sandal’s Song and Lennilu earned automatic bids into one of the six juvenile events to be decided next month at Royal Ascot by virtue of their victories here last weekend in the Royal Palm Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies stakes, respectively. But they aren’t the only two youngsters who participated in those races likely to compete during the prestigious Ascot meeting.
May Day Ready, the Grade 2 Jessamine winner who finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, will make her 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $300,000 Wonder Again Stakes at Saratoga on June 7, trainer Joe Lee said Friday.
Lee had been pointing May Day Ready to the Edgewood Stakes at Churchill on May 2, but the filly came into season and Lee could not prepare her for a race like he wanted.
May Day Ready spent the winter at Fair Grounds and then moved to Keeneland, where she remains.
Bless the Broken, third to Good Cheer in the Kentucky Oaks, is being pointed to a rematch with that undefeated filly in the Grade 1, $500,000 Acorn on June 6 at Saratoga, trainer Will Walden said.
Bless the Broken, winner of the Bourbonette Oaks, had a bit of a wide trip in the Oaks. She finished 3 1/2 lengths behind Good Cheer and 1 1/4 lengths behind runner-up Drexel Hill, who rallied inside of Bless the Broken in the stretch.
Locked, the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap winner who finished fourth in the Alysheba Stakes at Churchill Downs two weeks ago, will be pointed to the Grade 2, $400,000 Suburban Stakes on July 4 at Saratoga, owner Aron Wellman said Friday.
Rhetorical, light on experience but long on talent, makes his 4-year-old debut Sunday in a first-level allowance race for New York-breds scheduled for 1 1/16 miles over Aqueduct’s inner turf course.
A 4-year-old gelding by Not This Time, Rhetorical has run just twice – both starts coming at Saratoga last summer – but has impressed both times.
In February, the 4-year-old filly Sudden Switch made a successful transition from the barn of trainer Chad Brown to that of Riley Mott. Sudden Switch, belatedly debuting this past January, won a Tampa Bay Downs maiden sprint first out. The next month, Allen Wise’s Wise Racing sold the mare at auction for $170,000, and in her first outing for Mott and owners Todd Senger, Rebel Racing, and Dennis Park, Sudden Switch scored a sharp, front-running first-level Keeneland route allowance victory.
Welcome back. Welcome back, welcome back.
It’s not every day that a story about a race at Emerald Downs warrants an exhumation of the theme song to Mr. Kotter’s classroom, but today is one of those days.
Justin Evans, Emerald’s reigning leading trainer, on Sunday has a pair of horses in race 1 who have logged a combined 154 races. Bedrock, an 8-year-old gelding, is the spring chicken, while Surprsinglyperfect is three years older.
In spite of their advanced age, both should be in the thick of things in the mile-long allowance that has a $14,000 purse.
TIMONIUM, Md. – As the racing world rolls through nearby Pimlico, the ongoing breeze-up season in North America has landed at nearby Timonium, as Fasig-Tipton hosts its Midlantic sale of 2-year-olds in training at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.
The sale, which has a strong recent history of producing top-level runners, will now be held as a single session on Tuesday. That was one of several schedule changes caused by wet weather in Baltimore, as the pre-sale proceedings were marred by rain and the breakdown of a filly.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The stakes contraction this season at Santa Anita has created a handicapping dilemma that affects the Grade 3 Honeymoon Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies on a Sunday card that begins with a $45,806 carryover in the pick six.
Among the 11 stakes that Santa Anita either canceled or put on hiatus was the Providencia for 3-year-old turf fillies run annually in April. The 1 1/8-mile race provided an early test of stamina and offered clues to who might handle the same distance in the Honeymoon.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – With a race under his girth that followed a winter layoff, Thundering should make some noise in Sunday’s $100,000 King Corrie Stakes for 3-year-olds at Woodbine.
Thundering graduated in a big way second time out at 2 last October, taking the $125,000 Display Stakes over the seven-furlong distance of the King Corrie. When stretching out to a route in the Grade 3 Grey in November, he finished a belated fourth behind three salty rivals.
