INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Saturday’s $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup added a veteran Wednesday when defending champion Awesome Gem joined the field on the day entries were taken.
In the year since his biggest career win, Awesome Gem has been a mainstay in a handicap division that has undergone significant changes. In the 2010 Gold Cup, Awesome Gem closed from last in a field of six to beat favored Rail Trip, who is now based in New York. Richard’s Kid, who finished third, was sent to Dubai last fall.
Saturday evening’s concluding night of the Iowa Festival of Racing stages the Thoroughbred meet’s trio of Grade 3 stakes – the $200,000 Iowa Oaks, the $250,000 Iowa Derby, and the track’s signature event, the $300,000 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Awesome Gem still has got it at 8. He rallied for a one-length win in the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap on Monday, then withstood a claim of foul to nail down the fourth graded stakes win of a career that began in 2006.
“What a warrior,” said Craig Dollase, who trains Awesome Gem for West Point Thoroughbreds.
LEXINGTON, Ky. − Runnymede Farm was founded in 1867, and in the ensuing 143 years there aren’t many things its owners, the Clay family, haven’t accomplished in the world of Thoroughbred breeding and racing. But this weekend they’re about to do something they’ve never done before: run a horse in a Breeders’ Cup race.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In the vast majority of horse races, there are question marks among the past performances of the entrants, ranging anywhere from whether a prospective runner can handle an untried distance to perhaps another’s potential effectiveness with a change in racing surface.
Friday’s Grade 3, $500,000 Breeders’ Cup Marathon at Churchill Downs presents those specific unknowns, plus a whole lot more. At 1 3/4 miles on dirt, the race is atypical, and the outcome appears as murky as the Ohio River that flows past downtown Louisville.
Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup winner Awesome Gem is headed toward Friday's 1 3/4-mile Breeder's Cup Marathon on the Churchill main track, rather than the Saturday's Dirt Mile, said Jeff Lifson, vice president of Midwest operations for West Point Thoroughbreds.
After being pre-entered in both races Monday, with the Dirt Mile listed as first preference, the switch comes as somewhat of a surprise.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – There are 250,000 fewer reasons this year than last year for Awesome Gem to travel from Southern California to Chicago for the Hawthorne Gold Cup, and trainer Craig Dollase said Friday that Awesome Gem would stay home for the Goodwood Stakes rather than try to win the Hawthorne Gold Cup for the second year in a row.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, so too has Awesome Gem returned to Del Mar. Now age 7, Awesome Gem has become something of a fixture here. On Saturday, he will run in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic for the fourth straight year.
He finished second in the race in 2007, and was seventh in both 2008 and 2009, but he comes into this year’s race following a victory in the Hollywood Gold Cup, a performance that ranks as the highlight of his lengthy career.
DEL MAR, Calif.-Awesome Gem can no longer be taken for granted in major stakes.
After winning the biggest race of his career in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup last weekend, Awesome Gem is scheduled to start in the $1 million Pacific Classic for the fourth consecutive year next Saturday, trying to improve on a second in 2007 and seventh-place finishes in 2008 and 2009.
Considering Awesome Gem’s recent form, trainer Craig Dollase thinks the summer of milestones can continue in the Pacific Classic. “He’s coming off a freshening and he has a new lease on life,” Dollase said.
Awesome Gem worked a half-mile in 48.60 seconds at Del Mar on Tuesday, his first workout since a win in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 10. Awesome Gem is being pointed for the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 28, a race in which the 7-year-old gelding was second in 2007, then seventh in both 2008 and 2009.
“He was into the bit and really worked well,” trainer Craig Dollase said of the workout.
Dollase gave Awesome Gem a few quiet weeks off training in late July in an attempt to be better prepared for the Pacific Classic.
