Flavien Prat has come closer to finishing first in the Kentucky Derby in each of the last three years than he did when he actually won the race in 2019.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Gregorian Chant, a two-time stakes winner who raced primarily in Southern California from the spring of 2019 until earlier this month, has been retired.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said on Sunday that the 8-year-old Gregorian Chant will be sent to owner Andrew Molasky’s ranch in Las Vegas, Nev., later this month.
“He had zero issues,” D’Amato said. “He showed me in his last race he didn’t want to run anymore. He was good to us.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Two Rivers Over, the upset winner of the Group 2 Godolphin Mile in Dubai on March 30, worked a half-mile in 49.60 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday for a potential start in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at a mile during the Belmont Racing Festival at Saratoga.
The $1 million Met Mile is one of the nation’s leading races at the distance on dirt.
Two Rivers Over had his first workout on Sunday for trainer Doug O’Neill since the successful Dubai trip in which he rallied from the middle of a 13-horse field to prevail by three-quarters of a length.
Ideally, both Clovisconnection and Prince Abu Dhabi would represent trainer Blaine Wright’s stable in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields, the final stakes before the track’s scheduled closure on June 9.
Wright, it appears, is not alone among people seeking to support the $175,000 turf race. The San Francisco Mile will be limited to 12 starters, and is likely to draw an oversubscribed field when entries are compiled on Wednesday.
Fierceness and Sierra Leone, the expected first two choices for the Kentucky Derby, arrived on the Churchill grounds about 16 hours apart.
Fierceness, the 2023 2-year-old champion and dominant Florida Derby winner, arrived about 4 a.m. following a van ride from his winter base at Palm Beach Downs.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Chad Brown has been on a remarkable hot streak the last two weeks at Aqueduct, winning 11 races from 13 in which he’s had starters. His successful run could very well continue Thursday when Brown sends out two runners in the featured first-level allowance scheduled for 1 1/16 miles over the inner turf course, as well as a first-time starting New York-bred in a turf sprint in the finale.
Jose Ortiz has been named to ride Florida Derby runner-up and Kentucky Derby longshot Catalytic, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said Monday.
Ortiz, whose best finish from eight Derby mounts is a second in 2018 aboard Good Magic, replaces Julien Leparoux, who rode Catalytic in the Florida Derby, where he was beaten 13 1/2 lengths by Fierceness.
Just four days after Resilience and Just F Y I put in their first workouts over the Churchill Downs main track in preparation for their starts in the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, respectively, trainer Bill Mott sent the 3-year-olds out for their second workouts Monday morning on a clear, cool morning in Louisville.
“We didn’t do much the other day. I wanted to see a good work far enough out where it wasn’t going to compromise them but yet benefit them,” Mott said, explaining the quick turnaround.
A number of Ohio’s leading horses, and one of the state’s mainstay riders, will be honored at Belterra Park, which has a number of fan-friendly initiatives on tap as its season begins Thursday.
After three Thursday-through-Saturday race weeks to open the season, racing will continue on a Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule. The meet runs through Oct. 5.