ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Sofia Vives led the Woodbine jockey standings after the first four days of the meet with eight wins. She has a chance to sweep the early double on the Friday card with a pair of Robert Tiller-trained runners, So Called Vacation and Firebolt.
Vives, who was voted the 2023 Sovereign Award for outstanding apprentice, has her weight allowance until Aug. 25. She has seven mounts on the first Friday of the meet, an eight-race card with a 1:10 p.m. post time.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Stronghold and Endlessly, seventh and ninth, respectively, in the Kentucky Derby, were scheduled to return to Santa Anita this week to be freshened for summer campaigns. Stronghold will stay on dirt, Endlessly will return to turf, and both are likely to drop in class for their next start.
Stronghold’s trainer Phil D’Amato said “we’ll bring him back here and recharge the batteries. They’ve got a bunch of straight 3-year-old stakes in the Midwest.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Judge Miller went backward on speed figures when he finished second April 20 at Santa Anita in the Grade 2 Californian, but no one is sounding an alarm. After earning a 105 Beyer Speed Figure winning an entry-level allowance Feb. 24, Judge Miller regressed to a 94 in the Californian.
“It was only his fourth lifetime start, and I think seasoning caught up with him a little bit,” trainer Mark Glatt said this week. “He came back good. I think he’ll bounce back and still develop into a bona fide stakes horse.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – California trainer Jorge Periban will put a perfect record in Kentucky on the line June 30, when he sends the dazzling 2-year-old debut winner Bodacious from Santa Anita to Churchill Downs for the Bashford Manor Stakes.
Periban is 2 for 2 in Churchill stakes – Phantom Boss won the 2019 Bashford Manor, Tom’s Regret won the 2022 Kentucky Juvenile. Both were favorites. Based on an impressive debut, the newest Periban trainee may follow suit.
Impressive debut winner Boomcchero looks like the one to beat in a first-level allowance race for Florida-breds on Friday at Gulfstream Park. The 5 1/2-furlong dash on Tapeta goes as race 6 on the eight-race card.
Trained by Ronald Coy, Boomcchero showed a lot of promise in his April 13 debut in a $50,000 optional maiden claimer on Tapeta. With Jesus Rios aboard, he broke inward from the inside post and brushed the starting gate in the 5 1/2-furlong sprint.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The highs and lows of Kentucky Derby weekend behind him, trainer Chad Brown is now zeroing in on the four-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga where it looks like he will be loaded for many of the 23 stakes being offered from June 6-9.
Of course, he already announced that Kentucky Derby runner-up Sierra Leone is targeting the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 8. But, wait, there’s more.
Multiple-time Ohio-bred champion Candlelight Hours is the defending winner of the J. William Petro Memorial Stakes. The mare looks to be in fine form as she seeks a repeat in Thursday’s $75,000 stakes for Ohio-bred fillies and mares at Thistledown.
Candlelight Hours, who races as a homebred for Elkhorn Oaks and who is trained by James Jackson, brings a 24-10-7-6 record into the 1 1/16-mile race and has earned more than $500,000. But perhaps more important than her consistency is her recency; she is the only runner in the field of seven coming into the race off a win.
Conditions could be ripe for Ouster in Thursday’s multi-conditioned, $105,000 allowance feature scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on the main track.
Rain is in the forecast Wednesday and Thursday and Ouster is 2 for 2 in the slop, both in races run around two turns. In January of 2023, Ouster defeated New York-bred allowance company going 1 1/8 miles by 5 1/2 lengths in the slop.
Bob Baffert wants the lead-up to the $2 million Preakness to be about Kenny McPeek, the trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan.
“He’s the man of the hour and he should be,” said Baffert, while also acknowledging McPeek’s victory in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks with Thorpedo Anna. “It’s all about McPeek.”
When it comes to the Preakness, however, it’s typically all about Bob. Last year, Baffert won his record eighth Preakness when National Treasure fended off Blazing Sevens to win the middle jewel of the Triple Crown by a head.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Friday’s eight-race program at Santa Anita has a carryover of $104,580 in the $1 pick six.
The bet proved too difficult on Sunday when Visually ($36), Squalotoro ($30.20), and Vitalera ($61.80) won the seventh through ninth races on a 10-race program.
The carryover was clinched after Vitalera’s win.
On Friday, the pick six covers the third through eighth races, which have fields of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, and 7.
