Magical is a 4-year-old filly, Enable a 5-year-old mare, and in both the Breeders’ Cup Turf last fall and the Eclipse Stakes this summer, Magical had come within three-quarters of a length of Enable, who can properly be called the best horse in the world.
A year younger and still improving, Magical, you might think, actually had a chance to beat Enable this season. But the gap between the two is growing wider, not closer.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Collusion Illusion, the undefeated winner of the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes for 2-year-olds on Aug. 10, is unlikely to race again until late September.
Trainer Mark Glatt said on Wednesday he plans to run Collusion Illusion in the Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on Sept. 27 and will pass the Grade1 Del Mar Futurity at seven furlongs on Sept. 2.
“We’ll probably wait for Santa Anita,” Glatt said. “It would be too much racing in a short period of time. Something could change my mind, but that’s my thinking now.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Santa Anita received provisional approval from the California Horse Racing Board on Friday to run its six-week autumn meeting from Sept. 27 to Nov. 3 contingent on the track informing racing board staff in coming weeks of specific plans regarding the use of the hillside turf course for sprints.
Santa Anita has not conducted races at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course since a two-horse spill occurred on March 31. From early April through the conclusion of the track’s six-month meeting on June 23, all turf sprints were run at five furlongs.
**Please note: Post time has been moved to 8:05 p.m. ET due to excessive heat at Monmouth Park**
OCEANPORT, N.J. – There is little middle ground for Maximum Security in the Grade 1 Haskell on Saturday at Monmouth Park. A victory will likely send him to the Travers with a chance to take control of the 3-year-old division. A loss would be a major setback to his championship chances.
Kentucky Downs officials announced Friday that the winner of the Sept. 7 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint will receive a $1 million bonus if the horse proceeds to sweep the Oct. 5 Woodford at Keeneland and the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita.
The offer comes on the heels of the Grade 3, $700,000 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint having been listed as the first-ever Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In event at the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky.
Lys Gracieux, the only mare in a field of 12, won the richest race of her career in Sunday’s Grade 1 Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan, pulling clear in the final furlong for a comprehensive win by three lengths.
Without reigning Japanese Horse of the Year Almond Eye in the field, Sunday’s Grade 1 Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin Racecourse is wide-open and an excellent betting race with ramifications for major stakes in the fall.
The winner of the $2.7 million Takarazuka Kinen at 1 3/8 miles on turf will receive a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 2, provided the horse is nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program. More likely, the winner will be rated as a contender for the Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse on Nov. 24.
A driving rainstorm could not deter Crystal Ocean from recording his first win in a Group 1 race in Wednesday’s $944,475 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in England.
Ridden by Frankie Dettori, Crystal Ocean stalked pacesetter Hunting Horn for the first mile and held off a late threat from the favored Magical to win the richest race of the prestigious five-day meeting by 1 1/4 lengths.
Indy Champ zoomed to an upset win in his Grade 1 debut in Sunday’s $1.96 million Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan, beating the accomplished females Aerolithe and Almond Eye, who were second and third.
Almond Eye, Japan’s Horse of the Year in 2018, had her first start of the year in Japan in the Yasuda Kinen. She won the $6 million Dubai Turf at Meydan in the United Arab Emirates in her 2019 debut on March 30.
Indy Champ, a Grade 3 winner at a mile on turf in Tokyo in February, earned a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita with the win.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Saeed bin Suroor, the trainer of two-time Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow, isn’t a huge one for pulling back the curtain on his training operation, but whatever he and his team have done to harness the difficult personality that is Thunder Snow, it has worked.
Thunder Snow showed just what can happen when his inner demons bubble to the surface when he bucked and refused to race just after the start of the 2017 Kentucky Derby. Those who’ve been around him during his trips to the U.S. describe a horse who takes a lot of attention.
