OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A pick six carryover of $43,296 will help spice up Thursday’s nine-race program at Aqueduct that begins with the Grade 1 Beverly Steinman Hurdle Handicap and also features a $102,000 allowance/optional-claiming test for older fillies and mares on the turf that serves as the penultimate leg of the pick six sequence.
With the high temperature forecast to hit 97 degrees during the afternoon, Thursday’s eight-race card has a welcome 5 p.m. first post. Still sweltering, but less dangerous for the human and equine athletes.
Only fast and firm turf lovers need apply to the featured seventh race, a second-level allowance with an $80,000 claiming option carded for 1 1/16 miles over what ought to be a sunbaked course. An overflow field of 16 was entered, and with the temporary rail set at 36 feet, only 10 can run.
From five starters this past Sunday at Churchill Downs, trainer Steve Asmussen won no races. That was news. Between Thursday and Saturday at Churchill, Asmussen went 13-7-1-0, a remarkable streak that left Asmussen with 28 winners at the Churchill spring meet, 12 more than Brad Cox’s second-highest total.
Discreet Mischief lost the 13th race on Derby Day at Churchill Downs about 9 1/2 hours after his Brad Cox-trained stablemate Pure Force won the lid-lifter. The two colts come together Wednesday at Churchill in race 7, which very likely will turn into an intramural affair.
Great Venezuela will be tough to contain if she runs back to her last start in the featured ninth race Thursday at Gulfstream Park.
She’s part of an eight-horse field for the 5 1/2-furlong sprint for 3-year-old fillies on Tapeta. The $35,000 starter allowance carries a claiming option of $50,000.
The race also is the final leg of the 20-cent Rainbow 6, projected to have a jackpot pool of $550,000. The bet runs on races 4 through 9.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Juan Hernandez had 10 winners in a four-day span last Thursday through Sunday to clinch his fifth consecutive riding title at Santa Anita at the spring meeting that ended Sunday.
Hernandez won 36 races, one more than Antonio Fresu. Kyle Frey finished third at the 29-day season with 27 wins. Fresu led the standings coming into the race week with 29 wins, three more than Hernandez at the time.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Arabian Knight was one of the leading 3-year-olds of 2023, a season in which he beat older horses in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.
This year, Del Mar will be the venue of much of Arabian Knight’s intended campaign, beginning with a scheduled start in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on July 27. The $300,000 San Diego Handicap is Del Mar’s leading prep race for the $1 million Pacific Classic at 1 1/4 miles on Aug. 31.
North America has no real racing program for turf stayers, horses that want to run 1 3/4 miles or longer, and that is why the Thursday Gold Cup Day program each year at Royal Ascot holds less interest on the west side of the Atlantic than the east. The lone Group 1 on the card, it is contested at 2 1/2 miles, a long race even by European staying standards.
The Gold Cup is a long race with a long history.
The last time Auguste Rodin and Inspiral won they unveiled two of the most dynamic performances hours apart in Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita last November.
Both are winless in limited campaigns in Europe and the Middle East this year in advance of their first-ever meeting in Wednesday’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at 1 1/4 miles at Royal Ascot, west of London.
