SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Due to heavy rains that fell overnight, the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby and the Grade 3 Troy Stakes scheduled for Saturday at Saratoga have been canceled and will be rescheduled for Aug. 10, the New York Racing Association announced just before post time of Saturday’s 13-race card.
Four other races scheduled for the turf – races 1, 4, 9 (the Lure Stakes), and 13 – were moved to the main track.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year, made his final start on Jan. 27, 2018, with a victory in the Pegasus World Cup, his star setting after a career that spanned more than 28 months.
About three weeks later, eventual 2018 Horse of the Year Justify streaked onto the scene with a debut victory on Feb. 18, 2018, with his meteoric career spanning just 111 days, but including a sweep of the Triple Crown.
Maximum Security has been disqualified from the 2020 Saudi Cup, the richest race in the world, and his trainer, Jason Servis, has been handed a lifetime ban from racing in the country, the administrator of the race, the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia, announced on Friday.
The rulings on Friday will officially elevate Midnight Bisou to first place, with Maximum Security placed last. Held up for more than four years, the purse for the race will now be distributed according to the new order of finish.
A report prepared by the New York State Gaming Commission examining two clusters of racing fatalities at Saratoga Race Course last year has recommended that the track’s operator develop more sophisticated techniques to identify and modify the moisture content in areas of its dirt and turf courses, among a litany of other recommendations.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A contractual impasse between the New York Racing Association and TwinSpires, the advance deposit wagering platform owned and operated by Churchill Downs Inc., has resulted in the elimination of all NYRA content from TwinSpires as well as all CDI content from NYRABets, the ADW operated by the NYRA.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – “From the outset, the Kentucky Derby has been great theater,” Daily Racing Form columnist Joe Hirsch wrote in May 2003. “H.P. McGrath’s Chesapeake was considered the one to beat in that first Derby on May 17, 1875, but broke poorly and never gained position. Fortunately for McGrath and the backers of his stable, McGrath had a pacemaker in the race. Aristides broke alertly, went to the front, and remained there most of the way to win by two lengths. The Little Red Horse was the toast of the turf.”
The Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation will not appeal a recent court ruling throwing out two positives in horses trained by Steve Asmussen in a case dating back to 2018.
The board of the corporation voted to accept the July 3 ruling from Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phil Shepherd that cited numerous reasons to toss the positive findings, including a determination by the judge that the corporation’s predecessor, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, had “elevated a guideline” to a rule requiring penalties for violations.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The race goals are changing rapidly at Del Mar this summer for the 4-year-old gelding Dr. Venkman.
Stakes-placed in sprints last October and in June, Dr. Venkman won his first start around two turns in Saturday’s Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles, a victory expected to lead to a start in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at 1 1/4 miles on Aug. 31.
“He passed a big test,” trainer Mark Glatt said of the San Diego. “We better think about” the Pacific Classic.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The Chosen Vron, California’s top sprinter, had seven workouts between his win in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar in July 2023 and a fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita last November.
The Chosen Vron has not lost since, including a striking performance in Saturday’s $401,000 Bing Crosby Stakes that earned the 6-year-old gelding a fees-paid berth to the BC Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2.
For this year’s BC Sprint, trainer and co-owner Eric Kruljac is planning a more active preparation for The Chosen Vron.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Deterministic, second to Neat in the one-mile Manila Stakes in his turf debut, will stretch out to 1 3/16 miles in Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Saratoga Derby Invitational at Saratoga.
Trainer Christophe Clement said deep in the pedigree of Deterministic are fillies Amelia and Aquilegia, who were successful distance mares. Clement also felt Deterministic was doing his best running late in the Manila.
