ARCADIA, Calif. - Gormley inherited the lead a few strides after the start of Saturday’s $300,690 FrontRunner Stakes at Santa Anita, leaving Victor Espinoza surprised to be without a challenge early in the Grade 1 race for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles.
“I didn’t expect the race to set up like that,” Espinoza said. “You can make all the plans and they change when the gate opens.”
The tactic worked in favor of Gormley.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Jose Ortiz, aboard the front-running Ectot, came to the quarter pole of Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic with a clear lead and plenty of horse. He took a peak to his inside and then to his outside as he braced for an expected challenge from the overwhelming favorite, Flintshire.
“I knew I had something left. I was waiting a little bit for him,” Ortiz said. “I don’t want him to get the jump on me because the turn of foot that horse has been showing is amazing, so I didn’t want him to surprise me.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – They’ve conquered the locals, now bring on the world.
Ambitious Brew and Holy Lute are bound for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 5 after winning divisions of the Grade 3 Eddie D Stakes on Friday’s opening day of the autumn meeting.
Trainers Marty Jones and Jim Cassidy said on Saturday that the BC Turf Sprint figures in the plans for their runners.
Big Arthur, the winner of consecutive graded stakes for sprinters in Japan earlier this year, tries to win for the ninth time in his 13-race career in Sunday’s $1,890,292 Sprinters’ Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse in Japan.
The Grade 1 Sprinters’ Stakes is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the winner to the BC Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With a decision on her next start expected Sunday morning, Tepin was sent through her final pre-race work when breezing a half-mile in 49 seconds Friday morning on the Saratoga turf.
Tepin, winner of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Mile against males and a leading contender for 2016 Horse of the Year, will prep for a title defense in the Nov. 5 BC Mile by running in either the Shadwell Turf Mile or the First Lady, both Grade 1 one-mile turf events next Saturday at Keeneland.
Exaggerator, the winner of three Grade 1 races this year, including the Preakness Stakes, went to WinStar Farm on Friday for a freshening, according to his trainer, Keith Desormeaux.
Desormeaux said he is unsure whether Exaggerator would make the Breeders' Cup Classic, though he acknowledged, "It may be a little close to the race to think he'd return from a freshening and run, but we'll see what happens."
ELMONT, N.Y. – Haveyougoneaway, the New York-bred filly who won a pair of stakes at Saratoga, including the Grade 1 Ballerina, worked four furlongs in 47 seconds over the Belmont main track Thursday morning. She is preparing for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.
With the exercise rider Orlando Tapia maintaining a good hold on Haveyougoneaway, the filly went her first quarter in 23.11 seconds and her second quarter in 23.89.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder’s career numbers are impressive.
She has won 13 of 14 at Santa Anita, including the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes three straight years. She has won 17 of 24 overall, including 10 Grade 1 races, earned nearly $5 million, and will go down in history as one of California’s greatest female racehorses.
Another Beholder number, however, is uncharacteristic. When she faces Stellar Wind and Tara’s Tango on Saturday at Santa Anita, Beholder is trying to end the longest losing streak of her career – all of two races.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The fall is when television networks roll out their new shows, but for trainer Art Sherman, he’s hoping the next episode of the California Chrome Show in the Awesome Again Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita is a rerun.
“I wish he’d run a race like in the Pacific Classic,” Sherman said, referring to California Chrome’s five-length romp on Aug. 20. “That would make my day.”
