LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Todd Pletcher has the numbers. More than 1,000 starters in 2006 have won close to $24 million in purses. He already has set a single-season record for stakes wins by a trainer. Wins of all sorts have come at a 26-percent clip.
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Albertrani was an assistant with Bill Mott when Mott had his best years, in the mid-1990's, including the first of two Horse of the Year campaigns with Cigar. After Albertrani took a position with Sheikh Mohammed's mighty Godolphin stable, where he was the top assistant to trainer Saeed bin Suroor, Godolphin won races such as the Dubai World Cup with Dubai Millennium and the Breeders' Cup Turf with Daylami and Fantastic Light.
ELMONT, N.Y. - It has been two years since Balletto has won a race, but it has not been that long since she ran a winning race.
That is why many people are giving Balletto a big chance to end her career on a winning note in Saturday's $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff.
"Maybe my biggest concern would be Balletto," Shug McGaughey, trainer of top Distaff contender Pine Island said this week. "All her races have been pretty good."
ELMONT, N .Y. Bernardini, the 3-year-old sensation who figures to go postward a solid favorite in the Breeders' Cup Classic, had his final tuneup for the race at Belmont Park on Tuesday, working five furlongs in 1:03.32 under regular exercise rider Simon Harris.
Bernardini was one of three Breeders' Cup candidates to work over a fast main track after the break on Tuesday, along with his stablemate Balletto and War Front. Balletto worked an easy five furlongs in 1:02.24 for the Distaff, while War Front drilled a fast half-mile in 45.02 for the Sprint.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It used to be that trainers could not wait to get to Churchill Downs for their final preparations for events like the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders' Cup, but the modus operandi has changed this year. Keeneland's Polytrack became a popular option, and several trainers, most notably Todd Pletcher in New York, have chosen to keep their most of their runners at their home tracks until the last possible moment.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A Grade 1 winner with earnings of more than $1.7 million, a mare that has given her human connections four full seasons of thrills in an era when one-year-and-done is the name of the game. Who wouldn't want to be around a horse like Film Maker?
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The recent domination of the Breeders' Cup Turf by European invaders has not escaped the notice of trainer Bobby Frankel. So when it is mentioned that perhaps this will be the year for an American-based horse to win the $3 million BC Turf, Frankel is quick to say that maybe it is because American horses are that good, and not because the European contingent appears vulnerable.
"Maybe we're a little better this year than what people are used to thinking we are," said Frankel.
The talented but fragile Commentator on Monday was withdrawn from consideration for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint on Saturday at Churchill Downs, and the race could lose the filly Dubai Escapade at entry time Wednesday.
Commentator, according to his trainer, Nick Zito, aggravated an injury to his left front shin. X-rays were taken on Monday, and more were due to be taken Tuesday with Dr. Larry Bramlage at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., Zito said.
While he attends to his string of horses, however, Matz's thoughts never stray too far from the horse standing in a stall 19 miles down the road at the University of Pennsylvania's George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at the New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa. It has been a little more than five months since Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro suffered a catastrophic injury to his right hind leg in the early stages of the Preakness at Pimlico, and for now, he is continuing to win his fight for survival.