With a dozen lightly raced entrants, none with stakes experience, the $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile is something of a guessing game.
But here’s a statistic that might provide a helpful guide: In 2-year-old Kentucky Downs stakes races over the last five years, trainer Brad Cox has a record of 7-4-1-0. That is hot stuff even by Cox’s high standards, and his entrant in Sunday’s race, Mozlzil, looks very live.
Be Better seeks his fourth consecutive victory in Sunday’s $100,000 Polynesian for 3-year-olds and up traveling 1 1/16 miles at Pimlico.
The Polynesian joins the $100,000 Sensible Lady Turf Dash for fillies and mares at five furlongs on turf and the $75,000 Challedon for 3-year-olds and up at six furlongs on dirt on the program
Trained by Brittany Russell, long-striding Be Better overcame a moderate pace to best three others in the Deputed Testamony on July 29 at Laurel Park.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The only mistake made by 2-year-old Boltage was losing his dirt-sprint debut before he romped in a maiden turf mile. Endlessly, meanwhile, is undefeated after one start at the same trip.
The colts meet Sunday in the Grade 3 Del Mar Juvenile Turf, and if final time was the only yardstick for the mile stakes, Boltage would be a cinch. Boltage won his maiden race in 1:37.20, more than a second faster than the 1:38.33 by Endlessly.
Closing day, Sunday, of the Monmouth Park season could be a wet one. Thunderstorms were possible Saturday night, showers likely Sunday, and who knows what the $100,000 Presious Passion Stakes will look like come post time.
Eleven are entered in the Presious Passion, carded for 1 1/2 miles on turf, nine in the field’s main body, Affable Monarch and Portos eligible to run only if the race is rained off grass. It’s more complicated than that.
Cause She’s a Lady returns after a seven-week layoff to head a field of six in Sunday’s first-level allowance feature over six furlongs at Emerald Downs. The Blaine Wright trainee was third in the Hastings Stakes in June and then fourth in the Washington Legislators Stakes in July.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – A rejuvenated Me and My Shadow will experiment on the grass going 1 1/4 miles at Woodbine in Sunday’s $250,000 Wonder Where Stakes, the anchor leg of the Canadian Triple Tiara for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.
Trained by Mark Casse for D. J. Stable, Me and My Shadow looked like a serious prospect when earning her diploma by four lengths here on debut in May of last year. She subsequently ran fourth in the Grade 3 Schuylerville at Saratoga and then placed in two stakes here before getting the winter off.
Bay Storm will be looking to avenge a narrow defeat in last year’s Ladies Turf Sprint when she starts as the 9-5 morning-line favorite in Saturday’s running of the Grade 2, $1 million race at turf-only Kentucky Downs.
“It definitely gives you added confidence,” trainer Jonathan Thomas said of the strong race over this course. “But no matter where we’ve taken her . . . she’s very reliable. But certainly, it gives you a little bit more confidence knowing that she’s performed well there.”
Since the Kentucky Turf Cup became a true big-money race, offering a $600,000 purse in 2015, Mike Maker has gotten very, very serious about winning it. Eight runnings, five Maker-trained winners, and Maker’s three-pronged assault on Saturday’s edition of the Turf Cup includes the two shortest-priced horses in the race, Red Knight and Therapist.
