SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When the Lure Stakes was moved from turf to the dirt last Saturday, trainer Cherie DeVaux was forced to call an audible with her multiple stakes winner More Than Looks, who was supplemented into Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Fourstardave Handicap.
“He’s already up here. It’s not ideal to run him back in a Grade 1, but he’s doing well, he’s got to run,” DeVaux said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Grade 1 Saratoga Derby could be impacted by weather again. But it may be the weather in Virgina that has a bigger impact on the race compared with the weather in upstate New York.
Three horses who were entered in Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Secretariat Stakes at Colonial Downs were cross-entered on Sunday for Saturday’s rescheduled Saratoga Derby. The Saratoga Derby, as well as the Grade 2 Troy Stakes, were canceled last Saturday at Saratoga due to a high moisture content in the turf courses following Friday night rain.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Lammas, winner of a pair of one-mile stakes on turf and dirt in Northern California in his last two starts, is bound for Del Mar later this month.
Trainer Manny Badilla said on Sunday that Lammas will be pointed for the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on turf Aug. 31 and not the $150,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in Washington State on Sunday.
“It will be a test,” Badilla said of the $200,000 Del Mar Mile. “I’m not going to Seattle.”
The only mishap involving Turnerloose’s win in the Luther Burbank Stakes at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa last Saturday fortunately happened several minutes after the 5-year-old mare had ended a 14-race losing streak.
As owner Bing Bush gathered with his family, friends, and co-owners, the glass engraved portion of the trophy fell from its base.
“It wasn’t broken,” Bush said with a laugh Sunday. “It was so close.”
Turnerloose races for Bush’s Abbondanza Racing, Medallion Racing, and Ike and Dawn Thrash.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The Del Mar summer meeting came alive for trainer Peter Eurton on Sunday in the seconds Stay Hot needed to close from last to first in the La Jolla Handicap on turf.
Stay Hot was Eurton’s first winner with his 20th starter of the season, which began July 20.
“Considering the way the first two weeks have gone, that was a nice day, especially with him,” Eurton said Monday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Questions abound regarding Thursday’s nominal feature at Woodbine.
Can the classy Avoman break out of his slump in the $25,000 claimer? Will Sunrise Drive be able to duplicate his career-best last-out race? Can Life Is Hard win over 1 1/16 miles again?
Six-year-old Avoman won the Bull Page Stakes at 2 and the Plate Trial Stakes at 3 before a sixth-place finish in the Queen’s Plate, all for trainer Don MacRae, who lost him for $40,000 in spring 2022.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The annual foal crop in California has declined 66 percent over the past two decades, but the number of California foals currently racing is enough to make the final four races Thursday at Del Mar an all-statebred sequence.
California’s 2002 foal crop was 3,823. In 2022, the most recent year stats are available from The Jockey Club, the foal crop numbered just 1,314. Long term, the downtrend is frightening. Short term, Del Mar bettors are interested in finding the California-bred winners of races 5-8 on Thursday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The pedigree suggests Smokin’ Hot Kitty should be a turf horse. The results say Smokin’ Hot Kitty won’t be seeing the grass again anytime soon.
A winner of her last four dirt starts, Smokin’ Hot Kitty goes for her first stakes victory in Wednesday’s $125,000 Johnstone Mile Stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares. Seven were entered in the one-mile race, but trainer Bruce Levine, who entered three, said Echo in Eternity would scratch.
Three years ago, multiple Grade 1 winner Oscar Performance, standing at Mill Ridge Farm in Kentucky, was represented by his first yearlings at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected sale, looking to make his mark in a tough class of first-crop sires that also included Triple Crown winner Justify and champion Good Magic.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Ottoman Fleet, who has won a pair of graded stakes at Churchill Downs this spring for Godolphin Racing, may join or substitute for Master of The Seas in the Grade 1 Fourstardave here on Aug. 10, trainer Charlie Appleby said Friday.
“He’s in such great form, he deserves to have a step up into Grade 1 company,” Appleby said Friday after watching eight of his charges put in workouts over the Oklahoma turf course.
