The address for Churchill Downs in Louisville remains 700 Central Avenue, as it has for more than 100 years. But anyone who has not visited that address in 20 years might not believe they have arrived at the right place.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The first 2-year-old maiden races of the Santa Anita spring meet will be run Friday, and trainer Luis Mendez will try to sweep the 4 1/2-furlong California-bred sprints.
R Heisman drew the rail in race 1, an open race. Cali Cream breaks from the middle of the field in race 5, restricted to fillies. Mendez expects both first-time starters will run well.
He would know. Mendez works and gallops many of his horses in the morning, though he recognizes neither R Heisman nor Cali Dream is a cinch.
A highly competitive first-level allowance race for Florida-breds, 3-year-olds and up, is featured at Gulfstream Park on Friday. Just about all of the seven horses in the 1 1/16-mile turf race have a chance.
As an example of how tough the race is to sort out, Daily Racing Form handicappers Michael Hammersly and Scott Ehlers mention five different horses in their selections. It goes as race 7 on an eight-race card that begins at 1:10 p.m. Eastern.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two of the most exciting turf females in the country run Friday at Churchill Downs, as Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Hard to Justify makes her 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $600,000 Edgewood Stakes and Ova Charged, coming off a massive figure at Fair Grounds, makes her major-stage debut in the Grade 3, $400,000 Unbridled Sidney Stakes.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Is the second time the charm?
That’s one of the questions for top contenders in the Grade 1, $1.5 million Kentucky Oaks – the 150th running of the filly classic – on Friday at Churchill Downs. Just F Y I, last year’s Eclipse Award champion juvenile filly, got a late start to her 3-year-old campaign and makes just her second start of the season in the Oaks. The same is true of Thorpedo Anna and Ways and Means.
It can be done. Three years ago, Malathaat won the Oaks in her second start of the year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Modesty Stakes used to be a handicap run during July at Arlington Park. That’s relatively ancient history, but connections of the 4-year-old filly Heavenly Sunday hope history repeats itself.
On Kentucky Oaks Day in 2023, Heavenly Sunday went wire to wire in the Grade 2 Edgewood Stakes. On this Oaks Day, she could be the controlling speed in the Grade 3, $400,000 Modesty, a 1 1/8-mile grass contest for older fillies and mares.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Brad Cox thought he’d be running Denim and Pearls on the first Friday in May at Churchill Downs. He just thought it would be in the Kentucky Oaks, not the Eight Belles.
But after Denim and Pearls twice failed to see out two turns in stakes at Oaklawn Park, Cox cut Denim and Pearls back to one turn in the Beaumont Stakes last month at Keeneland. Denim and Pearls responded with a dominant 9 1/4-length victory that makes her one of the choices in Friday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Eight Belles going seven furlongs.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After capping off a near-perfect season with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff to sew up an Eclipse Award as champion older dirt female of 2023 what does Idiomatic do for an encore in 2024?
“I don’t know,” trainer Brad Cox said with a smile. “I guess try to stay undefeated and make a run at Horse of the Year. We’ll let her determine if that’s in the cards, but I will say I am very excited about getting her year started.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Handicappers who subscribe to the horse-for-course angle will have a dilemma when it comes to Friday’s Grade 2, $750,000 Alysheba Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Trademark, who floundered in Florida, returns to Churchill, where he has four wins and a second from six starts. In last November’s Clark Stakes, Trademark nosed out First Mission, with both earning a career-best 102 Beyer Speed Figure. That was First Mission’s lone start at Churchill.
In early April 1989, trainer Shug McGaughey, back on the East Coast, had the Santa Anita Derby on his mind. McGaughey trained Easy Goer, champion 2-year-old of 1988, a brilliant winner of his first two starts at age 3. Two weeks after the Santa Anita Derby, Easy Goer would cement his favoritism for the Kentucky Derby by winning the Wood Memorial by three lengths.
McGaughey watched as a colt named Sunday Silence, who hadn’t even faced stakes competition as a 2-year-old, roared to an 11-length win in the Santa Anita Derby.
