LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Runhappy will get a feel for the Churchill Downs surface this week as the 2015 sprint champion draws closer to his first start as a 4-year-old.
Regular rider Edgar Prado will be flown in to get reacquainted with the star colt for a serious breeze, most likely Thursday, according to Laura Wohlers, who trains Runhappy for her brother-in-law, Jim McIngvale.
“That’s the plan,” Wohlers said Friday. “I’ve been watching the weather, and now it looks like it will be good all week.”
Minding and Idaho give Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien strong favorites in two Group 1 races on both sides of the Irish Sea on Saturday: the $1.4 million Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown and the $931,980 English St. Leger at Doncaster.
Minding, a 3-year-old filly, can win the seventh Group 1 race of her career in the Irish Champion Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf. Earlier this year, she won Group 1 races in the English 1000 Guineas, the English Oaks, the Pretty Polly Stakes in Ireland, and the Nassau Stakes against older fillies and mares at Goodwood Racecourse in England.
DEL MAR, Calif.- At the start of the Del Mar summer meeting in July, Union Strike was considered the leading 2-year-old filly in the stable of first-year trainer Shelbe Ruis. It turns out the filly is the best of her age group in Southern California.
Saturday, Union Strike ($17.40) rallied wide in the final three furlongs to win her stakes debut in the $300,690 Del Mar Debutante, the meeting’s top race for 2-year-old fillies.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Bowies Hero was sold after his first race and sent to California, but he’s not going anywhere else for a while.
In his first start on this circuit on Saturday, he made good on the promise his new owners and trainer saw when they viewed a replay of his first race at Lone Star Park by taking the $102,760 Del Mar Juvenile Turf and stamping himself as one of the top prospects for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in two months at Santa Anita.
Troubled by illness and minor injury in recent months, Firing Line may be trained up to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 4, trainer Simon Callaghan said on Thursday.
Firing Line, second in the 2015 Kentucky Derby, missed the Harry Brubaker Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 24 because of a strained muscle. The 4-year-old has resumed training, Callaghan said.
It has been five years since the wonderful filly Danedream won the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden as a 3-year-old filly facing older males, and perhaps Serienholde can reprise Danedream’s first of two consecutive wins in the race on Sunday at Baden-Baden Racecourse in Germany.
Gun Pit, second in the Group 1 Round 3 of the Maktoum Challenge in Dubai in March, is a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 4, according to a statement released this week by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Trainer Caspar Fownes said the BC Dirt Mile became a goal for the 6-year-old Gun Pit after the gelding was removed from consideration for the Korea Cup in Seoul after “he scoped a little bit dirty” this week, the trainer said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - What everybody hoped would be a storybook ending to an incredible day of racing at Saratoga on Saturday didn’t quite turn out as most had expected, with Lady Eli’s comeback in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa spoiled by an unlikely nemesis, the 27-1 Strike Charmer.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Masochistic earned $120,000 for little more than a workout against two rivals in Saturday’s $200,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar.
Masochistic ($2.40) led throughout under jockey Tyler Baze, set reasonable fractions and won without urging by 3 3/4 lengths over Vyjack, a millionaire multiple stakes winner. Indexical finished third, beaten 11 1/4 lengths.
The race had five entries, but Cautious Giant and Outside Nashville were withdrawn Saturday morning.
