Owen Almighty looks to have found a relatively soft landing spot in which to make his return to the races and 3-year-old debut when he starts as a likely odds-on favorite in a field of six entered in Saturday’s Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
The Pasco, at seven furlongs, has a guaranteed purse of $75,000 plus up to another $75,000 in available purse money for Florida-bred and/or Florida sired horses.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The gang’s not all here, but other than two notable exceptions, the highest profile California-breds will be running Saturday in five statebred stakes at Santa Anita.
Missing are The Chosen Vron, an 18-time stakes winner sidelined until summer, and Kings River Knight, a six-time stakes winner who posted his first comeback work last week. In their absence, others will step up, including a deep field in the $175,000 Unusual Heat Turf Classic that goes as race 9 on Saturday’s 11-race card.
College Football Playoff action resumes Thursday night with the Notre Dame-Penn State semifinal in the Orange Bowl, and new customers using our top online sportsbook promo codes to bet on the game can collect up to combined $6,450 in welcome bonuses (see below).
Kickoff Thursday from Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
In a post-race interview after Geaux Sugar, a horse he trains, won the Andrew Ney Memorial on Nov. 23 at Fair Grounds, Keith Bourgeois demurred when an interviewer suggested Geaux Sugar logically would make his next start in the Louisiana Champions Day Sprint three weeks later.
Geaux Sugar had won the Ney coming back just 15 days after a Delta Downs allowance race, which came about one month after another Delta start. Bourgeois said he’d asked a lot of Geaux Sugar, who might, in return, ask for more time between outings.
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Defending race winner Lure Him In, along with the red-hot duo of Secret Chat and Awesome Train, top a full and extremely well-matched field of 12 Florida-breds entered to go 1 1/16 miles Saturday at Gulfstream Park in the $75,000 Sunshine Classic. The longtime local fixture shares billing on the card with the $75,000 Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf.
In seven career starts against California-breds, Big City Lights has won three times and finished second on four occasions to The Chosen Vron, the leading statebred in the last two years.
Not a bad record at all.
Without The Chosen Vron for competition, the 6-year-old Big City Lights won the Cary Grant Stakes for statebreds by 8 1/2 lengths as the odds-on favorite at Del Mar in November.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A pair of 3-year-olds fresh off California-bred stakes wins at Los Alamitos will try to go back-to-back in the final two races Saturday at Santa Anita.
The colt Shea Brennan holds a narrow advantage in the $175,000 California Chrome California Cup Derby, a 1 1/16-mile dirt stakes that is race 10. Last time out, Shea Brennan won the one-mile King Glorious Stakes by a nose at Los Alamitos.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – When it looks this easy, it typically doesn’t turn out to be that way. But going into Saturday’s $150,000 Ladies Stakes at Aqueduct, the factors that favor Tizzy in the Sky are hard to look past in the 1 1/8-mile stakes race being run for the 153rd time.
In what could be her final career start before heading to the breeding shed, Tizzy in the Sky will be running over her favorite surface – she is 5 for 8 at Aqueduct, 0 for 5 elsewhere – her preferred distance, and she looks like the controlling speed in the compact five-horse field.
