When He’spuregold won the Irish War Cry Handicap in July 2021, he was coming off an encouraging maiden win. He won it again in July 2022 after capturing a second-level allowance race in his first start of the season.
But if He’spuregold is to three-peat in the Irish War Cry on Sunday at Monmouth Park, he’ll need to run better than he did June 11 when he finished a well-beaten fourth as the odds-on favorite in the Friendly Lover Stakes at Monmouth.
Alternate Rock established herself as a runner of quality when she became stakes-placed last year as a 2-year-old, but she seems to have taken her game to a new level since moving to two turns in recent times and her record points her out as the chief contender in Sunday’s eighth race at Gulfstream Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher seems genuinely torn where next to run Forte, last year’s 2-year-old champion who ran a game second in the Belmont Stakes last month off a 10-week layoff.
While the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga would give Forte an additional week from the Belmont and a race over the track where the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers will be run on Aug. 26, the Haskell on July 22 at Monmouth Park is a Grade 1 and worth $1 million.
Kentucky Derby winner Mage moved a step closer to his next start after working six furlongs in 1:13.75 Friday at the Thoroughbred Training Center in Lexington, Ky., according to assistant trainer Gustavo Delgado Jr. Regular exercise rider J.J. Delgado was aboard.
The work was the third and stiffest yet for Mage since being given some time off following his third-place finish as the 7-5 favorite in the Preakness on May 20.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Mott all but confirmed Metropolitan Handicap winner Cody’s Wish will make his next start in the Grade 1 Whitney here on Aug. 5 after watching the fan favorite breeze a very easy five furlongs in 1:01 over the Oklahoma training track on Friday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Sunday marks the end of racing at Belmont Park for the year – but it marks the beginning of the 3-year-old season for the Grade 1 stakes-placed, New York-bred filly You’re My Girl.
You’re My Girl heads a field of nine females entered in a first-level New York-bred allowance scheduled for six furlongs on the main track that is the co-feature on a stakes-less nine-race card that begins at 12:30 p.m.
Straighten Up won his career debut at Los Alamitos last July, part of a limited four-race campaign highlighted by two second-place finishes in stakes for statebred juvenile sprinters at Del Mar.
On Sunday, Straighten Up is back at Los Alamitos for the start of his 3-year-old season in an allowance race for statebreds at 5 1/2 furlongs. The abbreviated distance ideally fits Straighten Up who may not want more than a six-furlong race, according to trainer Mike Puype.
“He’s a five-and-a-half and at best six,” Puype said of the ideal furlongs for Straighten Up.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Bloodstock and sales professional Ramiro Restrepo, instrumental in selecting Kentucky Derby winner Mage for his ownership partnership as a 2-year-old in training, described breeze-up sales as “the horse version of the NFL combine.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The North American yearling sale season kicks off with Tuesday’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale, and thus also begins the task of evaluating new stallions as the sale looks to follow up on a strong edition.
A sizeable group of 370 selected yearlings were cataloged for the single-session sale, beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Fasig-Tipton’s Newtown Paddocks headquarters in Lexington, Ky.
He won stakes last September and November by leading throughout and in May from slightly off the pace.
The 5-year-old gelding I’mgonnabesomebody has been in the best form of his career in the last year in Northern California and will need another top-level performance to win the richest race of his career in Sunday’s $150,000 Pleasanton Mile at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif.
