Though it offers a purse of just $100,000, the Gun Runner Stakes has yielded a Kentucky Derby runner in each of its first two years of existence, though Epicenter, the Derby runner-up in 2022, turned into a far more important horse than Jace’s Road, 17th in this year’s Derby.
Epicenter’s trainer, Steve Asmussen, and Jace’s Road’s trainer, Brad Cox, each have two entries in Saturday’s Gun Runner, which, along with the rest of an eight-stakes Dec. 23 card, was drawn this past Saturday.
High-class Fair Grounds-based 3-year-old filly sprinters Vahva and Alva Starr in a different year likely would be starting Dec. 26 at Santa Anita in the Grade 1 La Brea. Instead, the two fillies, respectively first and second last out in the Grade 2 Raven Run at Keeneland, are being aimed at lesser objectives.
Connections of the pair found a dearth of California-bound flights in December. Faced with the prospect of a 28-hour van trip, everyone took a pass.
Jockeys Tiago Pereira and Ramon Vazquez will serve three-day suspensions later this month after losing appeals of rulings issued during the Del Mar summer meeting.
Pereira and Vazquez appealed the summertime penalties to the California Horse Racing Board, but were rejected. Pereira’s suspension covers racing on Dec. 26 and 29-30, while Vazquez, currently riding at Oaklawn Park, has been suspended from Dec. 29-31.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The well-traveled Senor Buscador, whose 16 lifetime starts have come over 10 different racetracks, will add Gulfstream Park to the list when he launches his 2024 campaign next month in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational.
Ruby Nell, a two-time stakes winner this fall, is expected to start in the $100,000 Lady of Shamrock Stakes at a mile on turf at Santa Anita on Dec. 31 instead of the Grade 1 American Oaks at 1 1/4 miles on Dec. 26, trainer Richard Mandella said Sunday.
Mandella said the shorter distance of the Lady of Shamrock Stakes has greater appeal than the $300,000 American Oaks. Both races are for 3-year-old fillies.
“I’m more likely to wait” for the Lady of Shamrock Stakes, he said.
Trainer Ed Moger Jr., a mainstay in Northern California for decades, will have a majority of his 40-horse stable at Santa Anita in Southern California this winter for the first time.
Moger said on Monday that the decision was prompted partially by a severe purse cut at Golden Gate Fields, announced earlier this month that takes effect with the opening of the track’s winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26.
Trainer Kevin Rice has gotten off to a quick start at the Tampa Bay Downs meet, one he hopes to continue Wednesday when he runs Everdoit in a first-level allowance for 2-year-olds at 6 1/2 furlongs on the dirt.
The race could be used as a stepping-stone to the $125,000 Pasco Stakes going seven furlongs on Jan. 13 at Tampa.
