The Best of Ohio series – three rich stakes cards held at each of the state’s three Thoroughbred tracks – match the best Ohio-bred runners. In the case of Saturday’s five $100,000 stakes at Thistledown, several logical candidates have come home to the Buckeye State after solid performances against open company elsewhere.
Grogu, who starts with a leading chance in Saturday’s $75,000 Robert Dupret Derby at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, Calif., represents the entirety of trainer Matt Troy’s stable.
“I’m calling this the summer of Grogu,” Troy said Thursday.
A winner of 2 of 11 starts, Grogu is the lone horse Troy is currently training. Saturday’s race will be Grogu’s turf stakes debut and a chance for his 52-year-old trainer to record a first stakes win.
Troy has found an easy race. The Dupret Derby, run at 1 1/16 miles, drew a field of seven. None are stakes winners.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Handicappers may feel they are trying to compare apples to oranges when eight maiden winners from eight different tracks converge here Saturday to take on locally stakes-placed Touchy in the $200,000 Saratoga Special. The Grade 2 dash is the final major local prep for the Grade 1 Hopeful on Sept. 2.
Classic of Course returns home to Gulfstream Park for the $95,000 Proud Man a more mature 2-year-old after a trip to New York, and his experience level could serve him well Saturday.
The Proud Man and its counterpart for 2-year-old fillies, the $95,000 Sharp Susan, highlight an 11-race card. Both stakes will be run at six furlongs on dirt.
Classic of Course is part of a field of eight that includes five runners that have either had just one start or are making their debuts. He will get good support alongside fellow two-time starters Joey Muscles and I’mbiggerthanilook.
As of Tuesday, Saturday was supposed to feature an East Coast festival of turf racing, multiple graded stakes carded in New York and Virginia. Then Tropical Storm Debby began drifting north. What a downer. Colonial already has moved Saturday races to Sunday, and all the rain leaves limited stakes options.
Saratoga Special
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – For all his dominance of the turf stakes run on this circuit, trainer Chad Brown has one glaring omission on his résumé – the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap.
In eight runnings from 2012-22, Brown has started 15 horses in the one-mile turf race for older males. He has six seconds and two thirds. In 2020, Brown ran half the field and finished fifth through eighth.
On Sunday, Brown has a chance to end his oh-fer when he sends out Carl Spackler in the $500,000 Fourstardave.
Which front-runner will crack, and who will survive, in the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes for 2-year-old fillies Saturday at Del Mar?
“It looks like all of us want to do the exact same thing,” Ryan Hanson, trainer of debut winner Night Beacon, noted.
They all want to make the lead.
Each of the five Sorrento entrants won their most recent start leading gate to wire, but Saturday at Del Mar, the competition is tougher, the pace is extreme, and the six-furlong distance is farther than most have run.
Trainer Scott Tubbs has a formidable one-two punch in Saturday’s 6 1/2-furlong claiming feature at Emerald Downs. On the eve of the Longacres Mile, a six pack of $8,000 claimers will face off in the fifth event on a seven-race card. Heading the field is the Tubbs duo of Don’t Tell Hydee and Rafanelli.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Manfred and Penny Conrad are no strangers to racing success, having won the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint with longshot Shamrock Rose about five years after diving into the sport with Mark Casse as their trainer.
The Conrads own two prime contenders for the $1 million King’s Plate on Aug. 17 at Woodbine, Essex Serpent and Midnight Mascot. The duo ran first and third in the Grade 3 Marine on June 29, with Essex Serpent prevailing with a big 89 Beyer Speed Figure in just his third career start and first race around two turns.
