OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown is going to use many upcoming stakes at Aqueduct to prepare his horses for the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.
Recent Grade 1 winners Chancer McPatrick, Ways and Means, and Raging Sea all will make their next starts at Aqueduct while several 2-year-old turf horses will get the opportunity to earn their way locally to Breeders’ Cup events in November.
A large, competitive field of 3-year-old fillies face off Sunday in Laurel’s $100,000 Weather Vane Stakes at six furlongs.
Carmelina has already won stakes at Colonial, Penn National, and Laurel and exits a fifth-place finish in the Grade 3 Prioress at Saratoga.
The Rainbow 6 jackpot at Gulfstream Park will have a mandatory payout Sunday, and if it isn’t hit earlier in the week, officials project the pool could be somewhere between $2.2 and $2.5 million.
The 20-cent bet will be held on races 5-10. The jackpot had not been solved for the last 13 race dates heading into the Friday card, according to Gulfstream. The last mandatory payout was Aug. 17.
Here’s a look at the sequence:
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Given how dominant With the Angels was winning her career debut at Saratoga, it would not have been a reach if her connections had considered running her in the Grade 1 Frizette on Oct. 5 at Aqueduct.
While that race was considered, trainer Linda Rice said she and her owners elected to keep With the Angels with New York-breds for now and run her in Sunday’s $125,000 Joseph A. Gimma Stakes at Aqueduct where she figures a short-priced favorite against four fellow statebreds.
A big Monday card at Finger Lakes features a pair of rich events for New York-bred juveniles, plus a solid lineup of older mainstays in the third stakes on the card. It promises to be a solid day of action – with or without Frankie Dettori.
Jonathan’s Way trained strongly enough into the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes last weekend at Churchill Downs that he made himself the post-time favorite. Trainer Phil Bauer, watching the colt work toward a race he ultimately won impressively, had some thoughts.
“He’s ultra-talented, and you feel sorry for his workmate, at times,” Bauer said.
Los Alamitos concludes a quiet two-week daytime meet Sunday with an unpretentious closing-day card on which a well-bred comeback filly faces two stakes winners in the featured sixth race.
The fireworks are next week at Santa Anita, with a host of Breeders’ Cup prep races and a reconfigured wagering menu. The fall meet begins Friday and includes the California Crown festival on Saturday, featuring what Santa Anita calls “entertainment like never before.”
The Fasig-Tipton California fall yearling sale, the state’s premier annual auction, arrives Tuesday at Fairplex in Pomona with a slightly different format this year and after mixed results in 2023.
This year’s catalog consists entirely of yearlings, a change from last year when the sale included a group of horses of racing age.
In 2023, the sale had an average of $31,089, an increase of 1.8 percent from 2022, and a median of $15,000, a decline of 11 percent from $17,000 in 2022.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Rat Portage goes back to the Tapeta on Sunday at Woodbine off a wide run on the grass and looks like a player in the featured eighth race, a six-furlong conditioned allowance with a $50,000 claiming option.
Following a productive 2023 campaign, Rat Portage has been even better this year since joining trainer Sylvester Ollivierre’s barn during the offseason. After rallying for third in his May 26 comeback on the grass, the 6-year-old cleared the first allowance condition over next-out winner Clayton on June 30 while putting up an 85 Beyer Speed Figure.
Xy Speed returns to Gulfstream Park on Saturday for the $95,000 Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint. When last seen over the local lawn he strung together three straight five-furlong turf wins while achieving a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 102.
It’s the kind of form that would make him tough to beat in the eight-horse field – provided he gets firm ground for the five-furlong race. Anything less than that could lead to his scratch, and Accuweather is calling for a 44 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms on a day forecast to be in the high 80s.
