It was like mother, like daughter in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park. Cavorting, a three-time Grade 1 winner in New York, captured the race in 2016. Her first foal, Clairiere, is now a two-time Phipps winner after claiming Saturday’s edition.
“I am very proud, and of course her mother won this race, too,” said owner Barbara Banke of Stonestreet Farm. “It’s been a family tradition.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The classy veteran Silent Poet meets the speedy sophomore Bushido in Thursday’s Woodbine headliner, a five-furlong inner-turf dash, combining conditioned allowance types with $50,000 claimers. The race was rescheduled from last Thursday’s card that was canceled due to poor air quality from the wildfires in northern Ontario.
Silent Poet has been the most successful turf sprinter at Woodbine in the past five years, during which he won the Grade 1 Highlander in 2021, the Grade 2 Connaught Cup and Grade 2 Nearctic in 2020, and the Grade 2 Play the King in 2019.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The Belmont Stakes is in the rearview mirror and the countdown to Saratoga has begun, opening day being four weeks from Thursday.
In the interim, there are 16 cards remaining in the Belmont Park spring/summer season and Thursday’s nine-race card (first post at 3:05 p.m.) is solid with three open-company allowance races.
Linda Rice and Chad Brown, one-two in the trainer standings at the meet, have four of the eight runners in Thursday’s third-level allowance feature that runs at a mile over the main track.
Beth’s Dream boasts a 5-for-10 record and on Sunday the stakes winner will attempt to improve her résumé when she makes her first start on a synthetic track in the $65,000 Ginger Punch at Gulfstream Park.
The mile and 70-yard race is for Florida-bred fillies and mares. It shares a card with its counterpart for males, the $65,000 Soldier’s Dancer.
Beth’s Dream has registered all of her wins on dirt. Trainer Victor Barboza Jr. is hopeful the daughter of the Curlin stallion Jess’s Dream will take to Tapeta.
ELMONT, N.Y. – There may have been a little more pep in her step Friday morning, as trainer Linda Rice walked from her barn on the Belmont Park backstretch to the training track to oversee her horses’ preparations for upcoming races.
On Thursday, Rice received word that an Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court recommended that a three-year suspension of her license handed down by the New York State Gaming Commission in May 2021 for “conduct detrimental to the best interests of racing” should be thrown out.
ELMONT, N.Y. – No race was impacted more by the cancellation of Thursday’s program at Belmont Park due to poor air quality caused by the wildfires in Canada than the $150,000 Jersey Girl Stakes. The race lost one of its two star attractions, likely favorite Red Carpet Ready, after trainer Rusty Arnold opted not to enter his Grade 2-winning filly back when the stakes for 3-year-old fillies was redrawn for Sunday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – When owner Jon Ebbert bought a son of Arrogate at the 2021 Keeneland yearling sale, he said his vision was to have a horse for the 2024 Breeders’ Cup. How he would get there and would he even be good enough to get there were unknowns.
That son of Arrogate, now named Arcangelo, seems to have charted a different path for himself, Ebbert, and trainer Jena Antonucci. In his fourth career start – and his stakes debut – Arcangelo won the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes, a victory that literally helped pay his way to Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.
ELMONT, N.Y. – For all his success with 2-year-olds, it’s hard to believe Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen has yet to win either the Tremont or Astoria stakes for juveniles run at Belmont Park.
Sunday, Asmussen will take another shot at both when he sends out Gold Sweep in the Tremont and Closing Act in the Astoria. Both stakes have a purse of $150,000 and are contested at 5 1/2 furlongs.
Mi Hermano Ramon has won a sprint, at a mile, and at 1 1/8 miles since early December, all on turf in Southern California.
The next objective is the longest race of Mi Hermano Ramon’s career in Sunday’s $100,000 Cinema Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Santa Anita.
Fresh from a win in the Singletary Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on grass on May 7, Mi Hermano Ramon approaches the Cinema in a condition that leaves trainer Mark Glatt confident that a fourth win is possible.
Sadie Bluegrass has won more than she has lost in her 23-race career, a remarkable achievement for any racehorse.
Of her 13 wins, three have been at five furlongs on turf at Golden Gate Fields, including her only career stakes win in the Camilla Urso Stakes in April 2022.
Sadie Bluegrass will have her seventh career start at five furlongs on turf at Golden Gate Fields in Sunday’s $75,000 Dream of Summer Stakes for fillies and mares, the feature race on the closing day of the track’s winter-spring meeting.
