Sun, 07/07/2024 - 18:43

Ova Charged, with seven straight stakes victories, hungry for more

Kimmy Burrow / Hodges Photography
Ova Charged owns the year’s highest Beyer Speed Figure, a 113, and has won seven consecutive stakes races.

Ova Charged can mack down with the best of them and perhaps the only thing that matches her appetite is her accomplishments.

She owns the year’s highest Beyer Speed Figure, a 113, and is coming off her seventh consecutive stakes win. It came in the $125,000 Chicken Fried Stakes at Lone Star Park near Dallas on June 29.

The Louisiana Downs-based Ova Charged was weighed during her trip to Texas, and tipped the scale at 1,188 pounds. And for a mare "that’s not 16 hands,” the height-to-weight proportion makes for one stout racehorse.

Sun, 07/07/2024 - 17:48

Motion ready to take another shot at Diana Stakes

Barbara D. Livingston
Mission of Joy (foreground) will start in Saturday's Diana Stakes at Saratoga.

Things are going so well these days for trainer Graham Motion, he’s willing to take another swing at the Grade 1 Diana Stakes, a race that has given him fits going back 35 years.

Motion on Sunday entered Mission of Joy in Saturday’s $500,000 Diana at Saratoga. The Diana, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on turf, is a race that Motion has coveted since 1989, when the Jonathan Sheppard-trained Wooing, a 32-1 shot for whom Motion was the exercise rider, was disqualified from first for interference.

Sun, 07/07/2024 - 17:23

Casa Creed, twice winner of Jaipur and Fourstardave, retired

Barbara D. Livingston
Casa Creed's last start was a fourth place in the Poker Stakes at Saratoga on June 8.

Casa Creed, an eight-time stakes winner with four Grade 1 triumphs, has been retired from racing, trainer Bill Mott said Sunday.

Mott said the 8-year-old Casa Creed had an issue with the suspensory branch of a hind ankle.

“It was starting to bug him,” Mott said. “He’s sound now, turned out, we don’t want to push him any further. He was very cool, very consistent, very honest. Most of his races have been on the grass, but he did win on the dirt. It’d be nice if somebody gave him an opportunity as a stallion prospect.”

Sun, 07/07/2024 - 16:56

Sweet Azteca, after Great Lady M. triumph, may target Ballerina

Benoit photo
Sweet Azteca earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 106 with the victory in the Great Lady M.

CYPRESS, Calif. - Sweet Azteca, the easy winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos, missed an intended start in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs on May 4 because of a minor injury.

There may still be an important road trip for Sweet Azteca outside of California this year.

In the minutes after the Great Lady M. Stakes, trainer Michael McCarthy hinted that the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap, a $500,000 race at seven furlongs for fillies and mares at Saratoga on Aug. 24, is a possible late summer goal.

Sun, 07/07/2024 - 12:49

Low Society disqualified at Aqueduct due to 'inadvertent error' on weight

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Low Society, who won Saturday’s fourth race at Aqueduct, has been disqualified from that victory and ordered unplaced by the stewards after it was discovered the 3-year-old filly carried the incorrect weight during the running of the $50,000 claiming race, according to a stewards’ ruling and the New York Racing Association.

Sat, 07/06/2024 - 19:11

Aqueduct's final day will feature pick-6 carryover of $114,387

Barbara D. Livingston
Sunday will be the final day of the Aqueduct meet, with the circuit moving to Saratoga beginning Thursday.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - There will be a pick-6 carryover of $114,387 into Sunday’s closing-day card at Aqueduct. Since it is the final day of the meet, the entire pool must be distributed.

The pick-6 Sunday will be on races 4 through 9 and will include the $125,000 Port Washington Stakes for New York-bred fillies, the co-feature on the card. The other stakes, the $125,000 Hudson Valley, goes as Race 2 and is not part of the pick-6.

Sat, 07/06/2024 - 09:23

Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals rules part of HISA unconstitutional

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a core function of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is unconstitutional, in a narrow ruling that will nonetheless keep HISA’s legal status in limbo for months to come.

The ruling, issued on Friday night by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, held that HISA’s enforcement powers “violate the private nondelegation doctrine” attributed by many courts to the constitution by giving HISA broad powers to enforce its rules without initial guidance from the Federal Trade Commission, its overseer.

Thu, 07/04/2024 - 10:39

NYRA pulls signal from FanDuel as contract negotiations stall

Adam Coglianese/NYRA
The New York Racing Association has pulled its signal from FanDuel while contract negotiations have stalled.

Races from the Belmont at Aqueduct meet run by the New York Racing Association began to be blacked out on Thursday on FanDuelTV and its online horse racing betting company TVG after the two sides could not agree on a new contract, according to NYRA and FanDuel.

An earlier contract between NYRA and FanDuel expired on Monday, but the two sides had continued to negotiate through Wednesday. The Thursday card at Aqueduct is NYRA’s first live racing date since Sunday.

Wed, 07/03/2024 - 21:20

David Hofmans, trainer of Touch Gold and Awesome Again, dies at 81

Barbara D. Livingston
Trainer David Hofmans stands with multiple Grade 1 winner Melatonin in 2016. Hofmans died Wednesday at the age of 81.

David Hofmans had the sort of results in 1996 and 1997 many trainers could only dream of accomplishing through an entire career.

In 1996, Hofmans won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Woodbine with Alphabet Soup, beating a field that included the legendary Cigar. Three weeks earlier,  Dramatic Gold won the Grade 1 Meadowlands Cup in New Jersey.

Mon, 07/01/2024 - 14:25

Plans call for an ‘all Tapeta' winter at the new Belmont – not everyone agrees

Belmont Park construction May 22 2024
Susie Raisher
Demolition of the Belmont Park grandstand continues in late May as horses exercise over the Belmont training track.

When downstate racing on this circuit moves solely to Belmont Park, winter racing will be conducted exclusively over a soon-to-be-constructed synthetic track, the New York Racing Association announced Monday.

NYRA officials are targeting the 2026-27 meet as the time when winter racing moves to the Tapeta track. The exact duration of the winter meet is still to be determined, but its likely to be from mid-to-late December through mid-to-late March.