Five turf races and the first 2-year-old race of the year in New York highlight the nine-race opening-day card at Belmont Park.
First post is 1 p.m.
Among the turf events is a $100,000 second-level allowance going six furlongs on the inner turf. Nine horses are entered to run on the grass including Fluid Situation, who returns to New York after spending the winter at Tampa Bay Downs for trainer John Terranova II.
Fans are not likely to notice much difference in the Belmont Park they left approximately 10 months ago, when the 2023 spring/summer meet opens Thursday for a 40-day run. But during the time away, a significant amount of work was done to start the process of a new Belmont that will come in the years ahead.
Churchill Downs
Friday, April 28
Weather: Cloudy
Temperature: 54
Track: Sealed/Sloppy
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hopefully, we’ll all be as accurate with our Derby selections as the weathermen were when predicting the heavy rainfall that passed through the Louisville area Thursday night into early Friday morning, allowing trainers to accurately adjust their workout schedules for those key final Derby preps, the majority of which will now take place here Saturday morning.
The 3-year-old colt Ultimate Gamble began April with a win in a maiden race at Santa Anita. He may end the month as a candidate the Preakness Stakes.
Ultimate Gamble runs in an allowance race against older horses on Sunday at Santa Anita. If he wins, Ultimate Gamble might run next in the Preakness on May 20 at Pimlico.
“He could come in for the Preakness,” co-owner Tim Cohen said Friday. “It’s not out of the question.”
Practical Move, the leading 3-year-old in California, and Reincarnate, third in two graded stakes in Arkansas this year, worked quickly Friday at Santa Anita for trainer Tim Yakteen in advance of scheduled starts in the Kentucky Derby on May 6 at Churchill Downs.
Practical Move, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 8, worked five furlongs in 59.60 seconds under exercise rider Baltazar Contreras, while Reincarnate worked a half-mile in 46.40 under jockey Drayden Van Dyke. Reincarnate’s work was the fastest of the morning at the distance.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Since the filly Regret did it in 1915, only two horses have won the Kentucky Derby having made just three previous starts. In 2018, Justify did it on his way to becoming the first undefeated Triple Crown winner since Seattle Slew in 1977. In 2008, Big Brown, also undefeated, won the Kentucky Derby from post 20, a spot the brash trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. picked on purpose.
Quattroelle won consecutive graded stakes at a mile in February and March at Santa Anita before she was deliberately held out of the Grade 2 Royal Heroine Stakes on April 1.
With major stakes looming next month, Quattroelle returns in Sunday’s Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes, showing the enthusiasm in daily training that led to her recent stakes wins.
“Everything is pretty much the same,” trainer Jeff Mullins said Friday. “She loves to train. We didn’t give her a whole lot of time after her last race.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Most of them already have cleared the two-other-than condition that partly governs the eighth race Tuesday at Churchill Downs, making for some interesting handicapping.
Eight of the 12 older horses in the main body of an oversubscribed lineup are entered for an optional $80,000 claiming tag, and all eight have been tested in stakes company at one time or another. It’s enough to make for a wide-open feature as Kentucky Derby week gets started with a nine-race card that begins at 12:45 p.m. Eastern.
Four times since September, Sell the Dream has started in turf stakes at a mile in California. Four times, she has been beaten when contending in the stretch, finishing second three times and third once.
A change of venue following a three-month break can end that streak of defeats when Sell the Dream starts in Sunday’s $75,000 Campanile Stakes for statebred 3-year-old fillies at a mile on turf at Golden Gate Fields.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The 2023 live meet at Hastings gets under way Sunday with a seven-race card.
The 45-day meet runs through Oct. 15, with racing mostly conducted on Saturdays and Sundays. The lights will be on when Friday night racing begins July 28 and runs through Aug. 18. Post time for Friday is 7 pm. Saturday, Sunday, and holiday cards have a 2 p.m. start.
