Last year’s winners Infinite Patience and Sunbird will return in the 2024 renewals of the $100,000 Ballerina and the Grade 3, $100,000 BC Premier’s Handicap, respectively, on Saturday afternoon at Hastings.
The Premier’s will be contested over the traditional distance of 1 3/8 miles, with a trio of 2024 Hastings stakes winners set to face Sunbird. Only Sunbird and At Attention, who finished second in the race last year, have competed at the 11-furlong distance.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Reigning Canadian Horse of the Year Fev Rover makes what figures to be her final career start in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Dance Smartly over 1 1/16 miles on the main turf at Woodbine.
A 6-year-old owned by Tracy Farmer, Fev Rover lost a heartbreaker to Moira two back in the Grade 2 Beverly D. at Colonial. She ran third behind Full Count Felicia and Moira most recently in the E.P. Taylor, a Grade 1 fixture that she won impressively last year.
Chad Brown has three chances, one of them a very strong chance, to win the Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland for the first time.
Brown always wins the First Lady Stakes on the same card as the Turf Mile, but fewer male turf milers have passed through his barn than females, and this race, a Grade 1 worth a record $1.25 million, has eluded him.
Brown entered one-third of a nine-runner field, Running Bee and Spirit of St Louis joining likely favorite Carl Spackler.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Despite summerlike temperatures this week in the high 90s, unmistakable signs are that autumn has arrived at Santa Anita – a meet loaded with Breeders’ Cup prep races, including five Saturday, and graded stakes for 2-year-olds with one trainer’s name all over them.
The first and last 2-year-old stakes Saturday go through Bob Baffert. He trains four of the eight fillies in the Grade 2 Oak Leaf, race 3; he trains the key entrants in race 9, the Grade 1 American Pharoah, a race he has won a record 12 times.
Maybe Ferocious simply is too much horse for the 10 entered against him in the Breeders’ Futurity on Saturday at Keeneland. He cost the most money. He comes out of the best race. He has the highest Beyer Speed Figures.
Maybe, but not necessarily. And if Ferocious doesn’t deliver, a host of talented colts stand ready to step forward in the Grade 1, $600,000 Breeders’ Futurity, a key early-autumn dirt route test for 2-year-olds that offers a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Walkathon was a fine runner earlier in her career, posting a Grade 3 victory in 2022. But this year, she has truly blossomed, with an uptick in her talent following physical development. Cutting a fine picture with dapples rippling over her muscles, Walkathon has won four stakes in 2024 as a 5-year-old, including three straight as she heads to the Grade 1, $750,000 First Lady Stakes for fillies and mares going a mile on the Keeneland turf Saturday.
It’s been six years since a West Coast-based horse won the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint, when Roy H went back-to-back to capture the event in 2017 and 2018 for trainer Peter Miller.
But that somewhat surprising drought could well end come Nov. 2 at Del Mar with the strength of this year’s sprint division concentrated on the Southern California circuit. Six of the top 10 horses on Daily Racing Form’s first list of BC Sprint contenders are currently stabled at Santa Anita, a group led by The Chosen Vron, Prince of Monaco, Straight No Chaser, and Raging Torrent.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though she’s won 7 of 19 races and earned nearly $2 million, McKulick has never won consecutive starts. That may bode well for her Friday, when McKulick looks to rebound from a disappointing third-place finish in the Grade 2 Flower Bowl at Saratoga last out in the Grade 3, $200,000 Waya Stakes at Aqueduct.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Under Who’s Radar beat Chasing Liberty on the track in the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Turf Sprint last month, but the results were flipped in the stewards’ stand when it was deemed that Under Who’s Radar impeded Chasing Liberty in deep stretch in a 50-50 call that took about 10 minutes to adjudicate.
Mufasa has returned home to Keeneland following his win in the Vosburgh at Aqueduct and his connections are leaning toward running him back in the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 2 at Del Mar.
Trainer Ignacio Correas said the horse is scheduled to fly to Southern California on Oct. 22.
Mufasa earned a berth into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at six furlongs for his win in the Vosburgh, which was run at seven furlongs. But the Dirt Mile, which will be a two-turn race at Del Mar, might be the better distance for the horse, Correas said Wednesday.
