Friday’s program at Santa Anita will include a two-day carryover of $153,104 in the $2 pick six.
This is the highest carryover of the autumn meeting, and the first two-day carryover of the five-week season, which began on Sept. 27 and continues through Oct. 27.
On Friday, the pool of new money is likely to surpass $750,000.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Flavien Prat is enjoying a career-best year and could be in position to challenge two single-year stakes records for jockeys.
Prat’s victory on Opulent Restraint in Sunday’s $150,000 Chelsey Flower Stakes was his 68th stakes win of the year. The single-year record for stakes wins by a rider is 79, set by Irad Ortiz in 2022.
Prat has 47 graded stakes wins this year, which is eight shy of Jerry Bailey’s record of 55 set in 2003.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Chad Brown is on the verge of becoming the fifth trainer in North American history to surpass the $300 million mark in career purse earnings.
Brown, who swept the three stakes run at Aqueduct over the weekend, enters this week with $299,980,856 in career purse earnings. Brown, 45, will join Todd Pletcher, Steve Asmussen, Bob Baffert and Bill Mott as the trainers who have surpassed the $300 million earnings mark.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - When she runs in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar on Nov. 1, Scottish Lassie will to try finish one place better than her stablemate Jody’s Pride did in last year’s Juvenile Fillies.
On Sunday, Scottish Lassie couldn’t go by Jody’s Pride in a workout at Belmont Park, the first of two the Grade 1 Frizette winner will have before she ships to California next Sunday.
Santa Anita Derby winner Stronghold will be held out of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar on Nov. 2 in favor of an autumn rest and a scheduled comeback in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said on Sunday that Stronghold was always going to have a rest this fall, either before or after the BC Dirt Mile.
“We’ve run him a lot this year,” D’Amato said. “We were going to run in the Breeders’ Cup and give him a rest, or give him a break now and wait for the Malibu and have a nice 4-year-old year.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The trend of the pick-6 not getting hit at Aqueduct this fall on Sunday continued as no one hit the wager for the fifth Sunday of the meet, resulting in a pick-6 carryover of $124,239 into Thursday’s card.
There was a carryover of $44,954 into Sunday’s card after the wager was not hit on Saturday. There was $139,096 wagered in the pick-6 Sunday, but victories by Gregorian Solo ($30.40) and Shesalittle Edgy ($24) assured there would be a carryover even before the last leg of the sequence was run.
Mary Broman, who with her husband Chester established one of New York’s leading breeding and racing operations, died Oct. 16 at age 88, the New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc., reported Sunday.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mrs. Broman,” NYTB executive director Najja Thompson said in a release. “In addition to her tremendous accomplishments in the New York-bred program alongside her husband Chester, she was also a warm and welcome presence. We express our deepest condolences to Chester and the entire Broman family.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sweet Azteca, the Grade 1 winner recently ranked among the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, will not be pre-entered, trainer Michael McCarthy said Sunday.
A five-time winner from seven starts, Sweet Azteca finished last as the odds-on favorite in the Grade 3 Chillingworth Stakes on Oct. 5 at Santa Anita, the first misfire of her career. McCarthy and owner-breeder Pam Ziebarth postponed a Breeders’ Cup decision until Sweet Azteca resumed training. Sunday morning, it was made official.
Jockey Cristian Torres, a multiple title winner at Oaklawn who is currently riding at Keeneland, left Kentucky for Puerto Rico on Saturday morning to visit his grandfather, who is very ill, said agent Cody Autrey.
Torres will miss the Wednesday and Thursday cards at Keeneland and could possibly be back as early as Friday. Autrey said Torres plans to ride Saturday.
Inca Empire’s pedigree as a half-brother to Oklahoma-bred star Miss Code West was one of the reasons owner Danny Caldwell claimed the horse for $20,000 in June at Prairie Meadows.
Fast forward to last Friday night, when Inca Empire gave Caldwell his third win in the year’s richest race for Oklahoma-bred runners, the $175,000 Oklahoma Classics Cup at Remington Park.
And on the same card for different connections, Miss Code West won her division’s richest race for Oklahoma-breds, the $145,000 Oklahoma Classics Distaff.
