SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Sierra Leone turned in his penultimate work for the Belmont Stakes on Saturday over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga, breezing five furlongs in 1:02.53 in company with Domestic Product, per Daily Racing Form. Shortly thereafter, trainer Chad Brown announced that Flavien Prat would replace Tyler Gaffalione aboard the Kentucky Derby runner-up in the final leg of the Triple Crown.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Ten years after winning his first Grade 1, Phil D’Amato could reach a career milestone on Memorial Day at Santa Anita in the same race that helped put the trainer on the map – the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile.
“I like this race, it’s been good to me,” D’Amato said.
D’Amato scored his first Grade 1 with 2014 Shoemaker winner Obviously, the trainer’s first of four Shoemaker victories. The wins kept coming, and D’Amato’s next Grade 1 will be the 20th of his career. It’s an easy-to-remember milestone.
Mr Fisk has three stakes wins in his last four starts since September, the sort of results trainer Bob Baffert has long expected from the 4-year-old colt.
“I think he’ll get better with age,” Baffert said. “His mother could run a mile and a half and he’s by Arrogate. We know what a sire he is.”
Robert Mosco has notched a single stakes victory during a training career dating back to 1992. Counterspy, a horse from his Parx Racing-based barn, might be favored to give Mosco his second in the $100,000 Mr. Prospector on Monday at Monmouth Park.
Anisette has not raced since late December when she won her second Grade 1 stakes in the American Oaks at Santa Anita.
Ruby Nell last started on March 3, the day she won her fourth stakes in her last six starts in the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes at Santa Anita.
The two 4-year-old fillies must return in peak form when they meet as part of a field of nine in Monday’s Grade 1 Gamely Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita.
Historic Fort Erie Racetrack is known for being the launching pad for the great Northern Dancer’s racing career and Benburb’s shocking upset of 1-9 favorite Aydeed in the 1992 Prince of Wales Stakes, among many other things.
Fort Erie launches its 127th season on Tuesday with an excellent nine-race card with 78 horses entered. Two of the races are five-furlong turf dashes and the other seven are dirt sprints.
Familiar names will line up for the first stakes race of the Finger Lakes season when older New York-breds sprint six furlongs in Monday’s $50,000 George W. Barker. The eight-race Memorial Day program has a first post of 1:15 p.m.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Some may argue that Mike Repole owns the best 3-year-old in the country even in the wake of reigning juvenile champion and Florida Derby winner Fierceness’s 15th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. That horse would be the undefeated and untested Mindframe, who registered a 103 Beyer Speed Figure in his debut and has captured his only two starts by a combined 21 1/4 lengths.
Fast Jack returned from a 10-month layoff April 16 to finish a distant, fading third in a FanDuel Racing allowance where he was the 11-10 favorite. Perfect. Fast Jack surely got something out of comeback race he needed and ran poorly enough to be assigned a favorable weight in the $75,000 Work All Week Handicap on Sunday at Hawthorne.
