Two Phil’s visited two Thoroughbred auctions in as many years but did not change hands at either one. Instead, it was trainer Larry Rivelli’s relationships, and a longtime client, that led to the private purchase of Two Phil’s, now a multiple graded stakes winner and prominent Kentucky Derby hopeful following his win in the Grade 3, $700,000 Jeff Ruby last Saturday at Turfway Park.
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DRF Past Performances
ARCADIA, Calif. – The first time trainer Steve Knapp won three races on a single day the milestone helped him clinch his first training title at the 2005 Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting.
Knapp finished with 16 wins, one ahead of Jeff Mullins and two clear of Bob Baffert. At the time, Knapp, then 50, was in his sixth year of training and en route to a career-best 65-win season.
The yearslong statistic is in jeopardy this year.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Multiple stakes winner Tyler’s Tribe will make his two-turn debut Thursday at Oaklawn Park in an allowance feature that also drew the talented Echo Again.
The one-mile race for 3-year-olds goes as the seventh on an eight-race card. It’s a first-level allowance for those who have never won a race other than maiden, claiming, starter, or statebred at a mile or longer, or which have never won two races. Like all mile races at Oaklawn, the allowance will end at the sixteenth pole.
It’s not often that you’ll see a 1-5 favorite on the morning line at Tampa Bay Downs or most anywhere else, but those are the odds set by Mark Luther on a 3-year-old filly named Redifined ahead of the Wednesday feature at Tampa.
Redifined will have Antonio Gallardo aboard breaking from the outside post in a field of six in the fifth of nine races. The daughter of More Than Ready is trained by Tony Dutrow, who has been sitting on 1,999 career wins since Feb. 17 and would hit the 2,000-win milestone if she prevails as expected.
Chris Landeros rode three of the six stakes winners on Saturday’s biggest card of the Turfway meet.
Landeros’s day was highlighted by a pair of talented fillies from the Brad Cox barn, as Botanical won the $300,000 Bourbonette Oaks and Idiomatic won the $250,000 Latonia. Botanical is streaking toward the Kentucky Oaks off four straight wins at Turfway, with Landeros aboard for all of them.
“She’s shown so much talent this meet at Turfway,” Landeros said.
New York horseplayers won’t notice a big change when Aqueduct’s 19-day spring meet begins Thursday with an eight-race card.
The three-month winter season ended with five weeks of three-day racing. The four-day race week schedule, Thursday through Sunday, returns at the spring stand, save Easter Sunday (April 9). Turf racing is on the horizon, with the first ones in the condition book slated for April 7. After mostly listed stakes being offered over the winter, there are five graded events on the schedule for the spring meet, which ends April 30.
Sunland Park leading trainer Todd Fincher has a chance to win two derbies and two oaks at the New Mexico track on Sunday.
He’s attacking the meet’s richest card with starters in the Grade 3, $600,000 Sunland Derby, $300,000 Sunland Oaks, $250,000 New Mexico Breeders’ Derby, and $250,000 New Mexico Breeders’ Oaks.
The races are among seven stakes on an 11-race card that starts at 12:25 p.m. Mountain. Fincher has 14 horses entered on the program, with 12 representatives in six of the stakes.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – To hear trainer Chris Englehart tell it, Dancing Sophia wasn’t much to look at when she first came into the barn following a claim out of a winning effort on Jan. 13. Dancing Sophia certainly became a sight for sore eyes when she romped to a 9 1/2-length victory in her first start for Englehart and Brian Culnan’s Epona Racing Stable on Feb. 24.
“If I didn’t know that [previous trainer] Jim Ryerson did a good job with his horses I would have thought she wasn’t well taken care of,” Englehart said. “She didn’t look real good.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – A peculiar turn of events has postponed a Monday showdown between flashy maiden winners who eventually may invigorate the 3-year-old filly division at Santa Anita.
At first, an early-season clash between Coffee in Bed and Clearly Unhinged was not likely. They were headed to different races – Coffee in Bed to a graded route, Clearly Unhinged to an allowance sprint.