BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Sibelius on Friday completed preparations for his start in next Saturday’s $100,000 Pelican Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs with a half-mile workout in 48.20 seconds at the Palm Meadows training center.
With jockey Junior Alvarado aboard, Sibelius followed another horse from the barn of trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer catching that one at the wire.
ARCADIA, Calif. – If stakes-winning filly Kopion acquires an inferiority complex, it is understandable.
Despite launching her career with two runaway wins, Kopion plays second fiddle Sunday in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita. The historically predictable stakes race is headed by debut winner Kinza, whose 96 Beyer Speed Figure is the highest by any filly foaled in 2021.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale marks the end of the breeding stock sale season in North America, and the end of an era. The sale’s catalog has gotten a boost from the addition of dispersal stock from the late Robert Lothenbach’s Lothenbach Stable, with his broodmares and yearlings lined up here.
A grim weather forecast in California this weekend will affect the way Planetario is prepared for an intended start in the $2.5 million Red Sea Handicap in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 25.
Ideally, expected rain will be minimal or hold off long enough to allow Sunday’s Grade 3 San Marcos Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf to be run at Santa Anita. Trainer Richard Mandella has planned the San Marcos as a prep for Planetario for the Red Sea Handicap at 1 7/8 miles on turf.
The weather may not cooperate.
“I’m not sure if we’ll get to run,” Mandella said.
Saturday marks the first big coast-to-coast day of early-season 3-year-old racing, and two of the division’s fastest, Fierceness and Nysos, make their first start of 2023.
They can’t be played at the expected miniscule odds, but neither can Fierceness in the Holy Bull nor Nysos in the Robert Lewis be easily opposed. One might imagine Nysos as the more vulnerable favorite since he tries two turns for the first time, but if you watched him dispose of the solid older horse Reincarnate in a recent team workout, you’d be hard-pressed to bet against Nysos.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Denim and Pearls will be looking to nail down some Kentucky Oaks points on Saturday when she starts as the probable favorite in the $250,000 Martha Washington at Oaklawn Park.
The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies will offer its first five finishers points on a scale of 20-10-6-4-2. The race is part of the annual Southwest Stakes Day card featuring four stakes on a 12-race program that begins at 11:30 a.m. Central.
When you think of Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, you first think of New York racing. McGaughey also winters in Florida, but one mainly associates his name with Gulfstream Park.
Quietly, however, McGaughey has made hay at Tampa Bay. Over the last three years, McGaughey-trained turf horses at Tampa Bay have gone 36-13-2-10, a robust 36 percent strike rate that has produced a $2.60 return on investment. Saturday, he has the probable favorite, Never Explain, for the Grade 3, $175,000 Tampa Bay Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile grass race McGaughey has won three times since 2016.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Save some cash for the Grade 3, $800,000 Southwest Stakes on Saturday at Oaklawn Park.
It’s scheduled as the last of four Kentucky Derby preps being run around the country, and the 11-horse field that includes graded stakes winners Liberal Arts and Wynstock might make for the best betting race of them all.
There’s no clear-cut favorite in the 1 1/16-mile points race (20-10-6-4-2) that is one of four stakes on a 12-race card that has a first post of 11:30 a.m. Central.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The two-turn experiment behind her, speedy R Harper Rose will return to what she does best, sprint, when she takes on six other 3-year-old fillies going seven furlongs in Saturday’s $125,000 Forward Gal Stakes.
