Somewhat quietly, David Jacobson’s training comeback has been a success. Jacobson retired in 2018 but returned in 2022, winning a dozen races last year. During 2023, Jacobson has 71 winners from 385 starters, with his stable closing in on $4 million in earnings, numbers that can get a bump Sunday when Jacobson sends out Quality Chic in the featured seventh race at Aqueduct.
After two failed trips to Santa Anita in October and November, the 5-year-old mare Stoic Luna starts in more familiar surroundings in Sunday’s $50,000 Miss America Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for fillies and mares at Golden Gate Fields.
A return to Northern California can give Stoic Luna her sixth win of 2023 in the main race on the final day of the Golden Gate Fields autumn meeting.
The Miss America Stakes is the ninth race on a 10-race program that includes a mandatory payout in the 20-cent Golden pick six, which covers the last six races.
Jockeys Tyler Gaffalione, Flavien Prat, and Luis Saez are among the riders who will be at Remington Park in Oklahoma City next Friday night for the $300,000 Springboard Mile.
The race for 2-year-olds awards eligibility points for the Kentucky Derby. The first five finishers will earn them on a scale of 10-5-3-2-1.
Gaffalione has the mount on Otto the Conqueror, who will break from post 8 in the nine-horse Springboard Mile. Prat has been named on Gettysburg Address, who starts from post 3. Saez will team from Glengarry from post 5.
Eclipse Award champion sprinter Speightstown, who went on to a prolific stallion career at WinStar Farm, was euthanized on Friday due to foot issues from old age, the farm reported. The son of Gone West was 25.
“We’ve been through a lot together in the last 19 years,” WinStar stallion manager Larry McGinnis said in the release. “We’ll miss our friend.”
Regardless of the outcome of Sunday evening’s $1.78 million Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity, Trane Station V is not expected to be the champion Quarter Horse 2-year-old of 2023.
The title will likely go to Dark NME, the filly who won seven-figure futurities at Remington Park in June, Ruidoso Downs in July, and Lone Star Park last month.
Trane Station V can clinch the title of champion 2-year-old colt with a win in the 400-yard Los Alamitos Two Million. Quarter Horse racing has championships for outstanding 2-year-old colt, filly, gelding, and an overall title.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Artie’s Storm drops from graded stakes company to the $100,000 Steady Growth Stakes for Ontario-sired stock on Sunday at Woodbine. Even with bar shoes on again, the durable 5-year-old should be dangerous in the 1 1/16-mile Tapeta route, after finishing third in last year’s running when seemingly over the top.
As he watched Loretta Lynn pull clear in a maiden race for sprinters in late October, trainer Phil D’Amato’s thoughts turned to how the filly might fare in longer races.
“She kept galloping out and drawing away,” D’Amato recalled on Friday.
On Sunday at Los Alamitos, Loretta Lynn will have her debut around two turns, and first start in a stakes, in the $100,000 Soviet Problem for statebred 2-year-old fillies at a mile.
Loretta Lynn will be favored in a field of six, all of whom are seeking their first stakes win.
Romantic Warrior on Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse will be favored to become just the second two-time winner of the Group 1, $4.61 million Hong Kong Cup.
He’ll be hard-pressed to top his 2022 performance, a 4 1/2-length blowout while facing 11 rivals, but Romantic Warrior appears to be just as good now as he was a year ago.
