As poorly as Lotsandlotsofcandy ran debuting in April at Keeneland, she was equally brilliant winning second time out June 8 at Churchill Downs. And if the 3-year-old filly’s second start speaks to who she really is, she’ll win again Friday in the featured eighth race at Ellis Park.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Next, the premier marathon dirt horse in training, gets another opportunity to do what he does best when he heads a field of seven in Friday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Brooklyn Stakes at Aqueduct.
Since being stretched out to marathon distances in fall 2022, Next has won 6 of 7 starts – all stakes – with four of those wins coming by a minimum of 11 lengths. Those races were at distances from 1 1/2 miles to 1 3/4 miles.
Red Cross Knight is unbeaten in three starts at Los Alamitos, winning at levels ranging from a $10,000 claimer at six furlongs to an allowance race for California-breds at a mile.
This year, Red Cross Knight has raced with success at Santa Anita in allowance races, beating statebreds on turf there May 19. Red Cross Knight led throughout that one-mile race and his forward style gives the 4-year-old colt a chance for consecutive wins for the first time in Friday’s featured allowance race at the same distance against open company on dirt at Los Alamitos.
It is back to reality Friday at Gulfstream Park for Catalytic, who returns to a far more suitable spot, the $95,000 Carry Back Stakes, after finishing a distant 19th in his previous start nine weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby.
Justifreak was lukewarm on the board and returned $22.84 to backers for a maiden victory Sunday at Churchill Downs. But in many ways, the colt was the longest shot to race beneath the twin spires this season and had already prevailed just by walking into the paddock. Justifreak returned to the races just more than three months after a horrific van accident that claimed the lives of several of his Eddie Kenneally-trained stablemates on a Kentucky highway.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Fracen Macho has run two solid races on different surfaces and will look to take care of business in Friday’s finale, a 6 1/2-furlong turf sprint for Ontario-sired and $40,000 maidens.
Trained by breeder Paul Buttigieg, Fracen Macho debuted May 19. Sent off at 11-1 in a 5 1/2-furlong Tapeta sprint, the son of Frac Daddy vied for the early lead before regressing on the turn en route to finishing second behind an easy winner.
When downstate racing on this circuit moves solely to Belmont Park, winter racing will be conducted exclusively over a soon-to-be-constructed synthetic track, the New York Racing Association announced Monday.
NYRA officials are targeting the 2026-27 meet as the time when winter racing moves to the Tapeta track. The exact duration of the winter meet is still to be determined, but its likely to be from mid-to-late December through mid-to-late March.
A six-furlong allowance race at Los Alamitos on Thursday is the second attempt for a 2024 debut by Pushiness, a stakes winner at Del Mar last summer.
Pushiness, trained by Michael McCarthy for Mike Repole, was scratched from the Pleasanton Oaks at the Alameda County Fair in Northern California on June 15. By waiting for Thursday’s allowance race, McCarthy has had time to give Pushiness an additional three workouts.
“It’s time to get going,” McCarthy said Monday. “She’s training forwardly.”
Coming off a Churchill Downs spring meet that averaged $1.4 million in daily purses, where maiden races went for a whopping $120,000, a letdown, at least a deep exhalation, inevitably accompanies the annual Kentucky circuit shift to Ellis Park.
