Saturday is comeback day for a pair of Steve Asmussen-trained 3-year-olds.
Track Phantom, last seen finishing 11th in the Kentucky Derby, and Hall of Fame, most recently 10th in the Louisiana Derby, start in separate allowance races at Churchill Downs.
Track Phantom has accomplished far more than his stablemate, winning the Gun Runner and the Lecomte last winter at Fair Grounds. Accordingly, he returns in a salty higher-level allowance over seven furlongs.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The speedy Toupie and the late-running Golden Hostess give trainer Graham Motion a solid one-two punch in Friday’s $150,000 Autumn Days Stakes at Aqueduct. As they are separate betting interests, handicappers will have to decipher which style suits best in this six-furlong turf stakes.
The Autumn Days is the second of two stakes and the last of nine races on an Aqueduct card that begins at 12:10 p.m.
Bryan Hawk is in the midst of an unforgettable meet at Remington Park and can add to his success as a breeder and owner in Friday night’s three stakes for Oklahoma-breds.
Hawk is the breeder and owner of both C W Prize and Breakfast Code, who are two of the top contenders in the $50,000 Silver Goblin, as well as Mister Omaha, who moves to two turns for the $50,000 Don McNeill. Hawk also is the breeder of Street Verse, one of the contenders in the $50,000 Slide Show.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Coming off a solid Belmont at the Big A fall meet and a successful trip to Del Mar, trainer Rob Atras looks to continue his good fortune when he brings Way to Be Marie back to the races in Friday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Pebbles Stakes at Aqueduct.
The Pebbles, for 3-year-old fillies and scheduled for one mile on the outer turf, is one of two stakes on the nine-race card and one of seven turf stakes to be run here between Friday and Sunday.
Week two of the Del Mar autumn meet has a tough act to follow. The first-week Breeders’ Cup is in the books, and the two-day event will return to Del Mar next year on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Reality sets in Friday, start of week two. The eight-race card includes four races with six entrants or fewer, the average field size is 6.3. Is it Breeders’ Cup hangover, or a sign of the times? Del Mar hosted the Breeders’ Cup in 2017 and 2021, and when racing resumed the following Friday average field size was 8.3 and 7.6, respectively.
While the broodmares and broodmare prospects garner the bulk of the attention at the November sales, weanlings make up a crucial part of the marketplace, and a number have fetched prices in excess of $500,000 as buyers and sellers look to the future.
This week’s highest-priced weanling was a $900,000 son of five-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, purchased by Glen Hill Farm during the Keeneland November Book 1 session on Tuesday. Glen Hill’s Craig Bernick said he is shopping the weanling market after struggling to buy in a very competitive yearling sale season.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Paul Buttigieg quietly has had a productive Woodbine meet, winning with 22 of 132 starters, good for a 17 percent win rate. His runners have banked more than $1 million, headed by the venerable multiple stakes winner Artie’s Storm, who won a recent conditioned allowance/optional claimer off a one-year layoff.
Buttigieg sends out two live runners on Friday’s card, including Fracen Macho in the seventh race for $25,000 nonwinners-of-two claimers.
If you had bet $2 to win on the 2-year-old filly Poppy the Princess in the fourth race on Aug. 17 at Ellis Park and reinvested the money you won that day betting Zealous Moon to win the third race on Oct. 6 at Keeneland, your $2 would have turned into about $3,500.
Both fillies blew up Kentucky toteboards earlier this year and wind up facing each other in race 8 on Thursday at Churchill Downs.
The New York Racing Association will hope the incredible run of dry weather this fall in the Metropolitan area continues for the next two weeks as that is how much time is left for turf racing on this circuit.
The Aqueduct fall meet – not to be confused with the Belmont at the Big A fall season – kicks off Thursday with an eight-race card that includes three turf events. There are nine turf stakes scheduled between Thursday and Nov. 17, after which turf racing is expected to be done for the year.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The 3-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna emerged from the Breeders’ Cup as the leading candidate for Horse of the Year while Sierra Leone got a leg up on Fierceness for 3-year-old male champion in what figures to be a tight race following the weekend’s Breeders’ Cup races.
But several categories – such as older dirt male and turf male among others – lack clear-cut choices that could lead to more intrigue than usual when the Eclipse Awards honoring racing’s champions of 2024 are handed out in January.
