The Northern California sprinter Top Harbor has started only five times this year. The races are usually worth the wait.
Top Harbor has won two stakes and finished second in two others. Add an allowance race win and it’s easy to see why the 5-year-old horse will be favored to win Saturday’s $75,000 Harris Farms Stakes for statebreds at six furlongs at The Big Fresno Fair.
“It’s hard to get a race for him,” trainer Tim McCanna said on Wednesday. “He’s a good horse and he stays sharp.”
Thin White Duke will attempt to parlay his memorable summer season into a productive fall on Saturday, when he chases after his second straight stakes win in the Grade 3, $200,000 Belmont Turf Sprint at Aqueduct.
The six-furlong race for 3-year-olds and up is one of six stakes on the card. Other turf races include the Grade 3, $200,000 Waya. The AccuWeather forecast calls for a high of 67 degrees and a 79 percent chance of rain.
ARCADIA, Calif. – One less freak to deal with, one more turn to negotiate. That’s the story in the Grade 2, $200,000 Chandelier Stakes, the first of four Santa Anita races Saturday with Breeders’ Cup ramifications.
While division leader Tamara sits out the weekend, 10 juvenile fillies race 1 1/16 miles around two turns. The Chandelier, race 3, includes the second- through sixth-place finishers from the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante that Tamara won in a romp. The winner earns a fees-paid berth in the BC Juvenile Fillies.
Saturday brings a pair of traditional championship events at Hastings, with defending winner At Attention again the horse to beat in the $100,000 B.C. Premier’s Handicap over 1 1/8 miles. The Grade 3 Premier’s drew a competitive field of eight that includes Big Union and recent B.C. Derby one-two finishers Accidental Hero and Sunbird.
At Attention, trained by Barbara Heads, won the Premier’s in 2022 by just a nose and most recently battled hard on the front end before getting clear in the stretch only to be nailed late by Big Union in the S.W. Randall Plate on Sept. 9.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Algiers, fresh off a valiant second in the $12 million Dubai World Cup, competes for a mere $150,000 purse in Saturday’s Grade 3 Durham Cup at Woodbine.
Trainer Simon Crisford sent Algiers to Aqueduct for last weekend’s Grade 2 Woodward, but scratched him because of the uncertainly of the drying-out main track and because of some missed training days following a deluge of rain in New York.
Boyd Gaming is riding a wave of momentum into its Delta Downs meet that opens Friday night with a pair of stakes that drew both reigning Louisiana-bred of the year Free Like a Girl, and a leading candidate for the same honor in 2023 in Touchuponastar.
Jockey Tim Thornton is named to ride both horses, with Free Like a Girl in post 10 for the $100,000 Magnolia and Touchuponastar in gate 4 for the $100,000 Gold Cup. The races will be run over seven furlongs, which is a two-turn configuration at Delta.
Trainer Steve Asmussen has been dealt a very strong hand for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 4 at Santa Anita. How he chooses to play those cards could prove a key element in determining the outcome not only of that event but two other Breeders’ Cup races that same day, the Dirt Mile and Filly and Mare Sprint.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Northern Invader looked like a potential star when he won his turf debut by eight lengths at Belmont Park in July. That star dimmed some when he finished fifth in the Grade 2 Secretariat Stakes at Colonial Downs in August.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After going on the road for the spring and summer, Detroit City is back to where he might feel most at home, over the Tapeta course at Gulfstream Park.
Detroit City looms one of several key contenders in Friday’s wide-open main event, a $52,000 optional-claiming and allowance dash to be decided at 5 1/2 furlongs over the synthetic surface. The race is one of two allowance events on a card that also includes a first-level optional-claiming and allowance test for 2-year-olds carded at 5 1/2 furlongs over the main track.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A graded winner once considered a Kentucky Derby candidate returns from a layoff in a stacked allowance Friday at Santa Anita. The 4-year-old might need one.
“He’s a horse who kind of needs a race until he runs into form,” trainer Phil D’Amato said, referring to Newgrange. “But physically he looks great. He looks healthy, he’s a coming back good. It’s a good starting point.”
