SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though The Big Torpedo dominated the Spectacular Bid division of the New York Stallion Stakes as the favorite going six furlongs on turf last month at Aqueduct, trainer Tom Morley believes the son of Big Brown truly wants to run farther.
Thursday, The Big Torpedo stretches out to a mile and looks likely again to be the public choice when he takes on six rivals in the $150,000 Cab Calloway division of the NYSS at Saratoga.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Abaan has defeated L’Imperator the previous two times they have met. Arch Kingsley, the trainer of L’Imperator, believes his horse could flip the script Wednesday at Saratoga when the two meet again in the Grade 1, $150,000 A.P. Smithwick Memorial Steeplechase going 2 3/8 miles over National fences.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. announced his presence with authority at the Saratoga meeting when his first starter, The Queens M G, upset the Schuylerville Stakes at odds of 44-1 on opening day.
Joseph, who has been on quite a roll all over the country the past couple of weeks, will try to keep his local record unblemished when switching the lightly raced 3-year-old filly Cap Ferrat to the turf for the first time in Wednesday’s $150,000 Statue of Liberty division of the New York Stallion Stakes.
Now in its third full year of operation, the Fasig-Tipton digital auction platform continues to set the bar higher for itself. Fasig-Tipton digital, which is scheduled to host a sale from July 18-23, has broken its own record for an individual horse’s price three times this year.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Last Thursday at Woodbine was memorable for Emma-Jayne Wilson as she surpassed Julie Krone as the leading money-winning female jockey of all time.
Wilson rides probable favorite Reload’s Rebel in this Thursday’s featured fifth race for nonwinners-of-three Ontario-sired allowance types and $40,000 claimers at 6 1/2 furlongs on the main turf course.
Grand Mo the First is scheduled to make his first start since the Kentucky Derby next month and will be moving back to turf for an upcoming stakes at Gulfstream Park, according to his trainer, Victor Barboza Jr.
The $95,000 Bear’s Den for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf Aug. 3 is the target for the horse, Barboza said Friday. Grand Mo the First was scheduled to have breezed on Tapeta on Saturday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Danny Gargan was fined $1,000 by the stewards for his behavior following Thursday’s Schuylerville Stakes when he yelled at the stewards on the phone in the winner’s circle and then hung up.
Gargan was upset after his filly Complexion – the co favorite in the race – reared up twice in the starting gate prior to the start of the Schuylerville, unseating jockey John Velazquez. She was reloaded and the gates were opened before he felt his filly was ready.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Queens M G, 44-1 winner of Thursday’s $175,000 Schuylerville Stakes, will likely be wheeled back in the Grade 3, $200,000 Adirondack Stakes on Aug. 4, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said Friday.
“Why wait so long?” Joseph said, referring to waiting for the Grade 1 Spinaway on Sept. 3. “Strike while the iron’s hot.”
Joseph was at Saratoga on Friday morning but on Thursday was stuck in a Florida airport, where he watched the race on his phone.
“We got delayed, but it made for a good flight,” he said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Christophe Clement, a native of France who has been in the United States for more than three decades, officially became a U.S. citizen on Wednesday.
“I’ve been in the country for 35 years, so I already considered myself an American,” Clement, 58, said. “Now, I’m officially an American. It’s good. It makes it easier when I pay my taxes.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – That the 3-year-old filly Star of Mystery was able to run third against older males in the Grade 1 Jaipur at Saratoga on June 8 was a good result as far as her jockey Flavien Prat was concerned.
Prat said Star of Mystery “was a handful warming up and behind the gate” prior to the Jaipur, won by top older male turf sprinter Cogburn. “I was surprised she ran so well the way she was acting before the race.”
