After Gabaldon finished second a week ago at Royal Ascot in the Windsor Castle Stakes, winning an allowance race at Gulfstream Park may pale in comparison for trainer Jose D’Angelo. Although if form holds true, that’s exactly what is likely to happen in Thursday’s $61,000 main event, to be decided at a mile and one-sixteenth over the Tapeta course, with D’Angelo sending out the two morning-line favorites, K. C. Chief and Spy Hunter.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Donegal Momentum was impressive visually as well as from a speed-figure perspective when he won his debut by 8 1/4 lengths on May 16 at Aqueduct. But that was against maidens and sprinting over a sealed, muddy main track.
Thursday, Donegal Momentum takes on winners for the first time while stretching out to a one-turn mile over what is likely to be a fast main track in a first-level allowance race that is the co-feature on Aqueduct’s nine-race program. There is also a first-level allowance for females scheduled for turf later on the card.
The first five finishers from the $100,000 William Henry Harrison Handicap on June 5 at Horseshoe Indianapolis return Wednesday for the $100,000 Nobody Listens Handicap.
In theory, they move into a more challenging spot. Both races are six-furlong sprints with Indiana restrictions, but the Harrison was open only to horses sired by Indiana stallions while the Nobody Listens carries an Indiana-bred requirement. Breeders in neighboring states don’t often send mares to Indiana stallions, whereas an Indiana breeder easily can send a mare, say, to a Kentucky stallion.
Kentucky Oaks winner Thorpedo Anna and Kentucky Derby runner-up Sierra Leone were among the big names who returned to the work tab over the weekend in Saratoga.
Thorpedo Anna, the top 3-year-old filly in the country, on Saturday worked a half-mile in 49.25 seconds, her first breeze since winning the Grade 1 Acorn by 5 1/2 lengths on June 7 at Saratoga. Thorpedo Anna is targeting the Grade 1, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks on July 20 at Saratoga.
Batten Down, front-running winner of Saturday’s Grade 3 Ohio Derby at Thistledown, could make his next start in the Grade 2, $500,000 Jim Dandy on July 27 at Saratoga, trainer Bill Mott said.
Batten Down made the jump from the maiden ranks to graded stakes winner with a relatively easy 1 3/4-length score in the $500,000 Ohio Derby, a race where he was never seriously challenged on the front end.
“He was unchallenged early and got the job done,” Mott said. “He never got in a dogfight with anybody. He looked like a clear winner.”
Rich Strike, upset winner of the 2022 Kentucky Derby who hasn’t raced in nearly 14 months, arrived at trainer Bill Mott’s Saratoga barn on Saturday to continue training toward a possible return to racing later this year.
“He looks pretty good, galloped him the last two days and he went quite well,” Mott said Monday from Saratoga.
The late Galileo, his relatives and descendants, and the stallion Dark Angel were among the leading sires at the five-day Royal Ascot meeting.
Galileo, the international titan who died in 2021 at Coolmore in Ireland, sired three individual winners, the only stallion to achieve that mark at the meet. In addition to Kyprios, a popular returning winner of the Group 1 Gold Cup, he was represented by Group 2 Queen’s Vase winner Illinois and Queen Alexandra winner Uxmal.
Not This Time, who has distinguished himself as an elite stallion in recent years, was the only U.S.-resident stallion to record a winner at the Royal Ascot meeting last week. He was part of a solid week for the sireline of the late Giant’s Causeway, himself a star on both sides of the pond.
None Above the Law ended a 19-race losing streak with an upset win in Saturday’s $100,000 Bertrando Stakes for California-bred milers at Los Alamitos, a division the 5-year-old gelding will see more of in the near future.
Trainer Jorge Periban has selected the $150,000 California Dreamin’ Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on turf for statebreds on Aug. 3 at Del Mar as None Above the Law’s next start.
Ascendancy is bound for the Del Mar summer meeting after her third stakes win in Saturday’s $53,350 She’s a Tiger Stakes at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif.
Trainer O.J. Jauregui is contemplating a start in the meeting’s championship race for older fillies and mares, the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on Aug. 3, he said Sunday.
