SARATOGA, N.Y. – The $100,000 Chowder’s First Stakes for New York-bred sprinters would normally garner little attention on a card that is highlighted by a race like the Grade 1 Ballerina.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When No Nay Never won the Prix Morny at Deauville in France last Sunday, it gave trainer Wesley Ward the first Group 1 victory of his 22-year training career.
He hopes it’s the start of a trend.
Ward will seek his first North American Grade 1 victory Friday at Saratoga when Judy the Beauty, a three-time runner-up in Grade 1 races, starts in the $500,000 Ballerina Stakes at seven furlongs.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The large field expected for Sunday’s $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar may work in favor of a proven closer such as Jeranimo.
Topping the Friday card at York is the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes, a five-furlong sprint that, through the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offers a fees-paid berth in the BC Turf Sprint plus travel expenses to the race.
The Group 1 Juddmonte International on Wednesday at York looked like a showdown between a top older horse and a good 3-year-old. It was, but not in the way most expected.
With Al Kazeem, the 5-year-old race favorite, unable to produce his best form, and hot 3-year-old Toronado a total no-show, 4-year-old Declaration of War won the Juddmonte by 1 1/4 lengths over the Irish 3-year-old Trading Leather.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Tiz Flirtatious, who stormed home to win the Grade 2 John Mabee Stakes on Sunday, will target the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, with a prep in the Rodeo Drive, both Grade 1, 1 1/4-mile grass races this fall at Santa Anita, according to trainer Marty Jones.
The name of the Breeders’ Cup Ladies' Classic will be restored to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff for the 2013 event and beyond, the Breeders’ Cup said Thursday.
The race is one of Breeders’ Cup’s seven original races, and it was run as the Distaff from the inaugural event in 1984 until 2007. The name was changed to the Ladies’ Classic in 2008, when Breeders’ Cup shifted the lineup of its races by putting races restricted to fillies and mares on the first day of the event after first splitting the card into two days in 2007.
DEL MAR, Calif. – In the last year, Comma to the Top has won six stakes at four distances on synthetic tracks and dirt tracks in California and New York. During that span, he has thrived over six furlongs, winning three stakes at the distance.
In an accomplished career that includes 13 stakes wins in 46 starts, Cirrus des Aigles can be forgiven for throwing in an occasional clunker.
When the 7-year-old Cirrus des Aigles finished fifth in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint Cloud in Paris on June 23, his first start of 2013, his trainer, Corine Barande-Barbe quickly forgave the loss. It seemed that Cirrus des Aigles was a little chubby.
“He had a little bit of a belly a month ago, but it’s gone now and he is probably more muscular compared to previous years,” Barande-Barbe said earlier this month in a press release.
