SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - As expected, Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan is a go for the Belmont Stakes, trainer Kenny McPeek confirmed Sunday.
McPeek said blood work taken on Mystik Dan on Saturday following his workout earlier that morning “came back good. We put his feed out, he dove in, so we went ahead and entered.”
McPeek had been hinting all week that he would run Mystik Dan in the Belmont, but wanted to make sure the horse had a good work, came out of it in good order and was eating.
Jockeys Keith and Erik Asmussen, sons of Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, were injured Saturday in races at Churchill Downs and Lone Star Park.
Keith Asmussen was riding Singsational in the first race Saturday at Churchill when the horse clipped heels and went down on the backstretch of a dirt race. Keith Asmussen was taken to the hospital with a possible fractured femur and a hip injury, according to Churchill Downs media.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A Kentucky Oaks rematch looks to be in the offing Friday when Thorpedo Anna and Just F Y I head a field of nine 3-year-old fillies that were entered Saturday for the Grade 1, $500,000 Acorn Stakes at Saratoga.
Regulatory Risk, who finished third in the Kentucky Oaks, is also part of the Acorn field.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Sierra Leone, beaten a nose by Mystik Dan when second as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby after lugging in during the stretch run, will wear a new bit, known as a cage bit, when he starts as the likely favorite in the $2 million Belmont Stakes next Saturday at Saratoga.
The only horse he rides these days is on a country trail near his home in Apache Junction, Ariz., often early in the morning before temperatures soar.
Life is different these days for Russell Baze, North America’s all-time winningest rider, than it was in June 2016, when he shocked the racing world by announcing his abrupt retirement at the end of the Golden Gate meeting.
There was no farewell day, or winner’s circle ceremony. Baze walked away from the sport, on his own terms.
Patricia Farro, a Pennsylvania-based trainer who at the high point of her career was earning millions of dollars per year in purses, has been suspended four years by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit after two of her horses tested positive for cobalt salts, according to documents HIWU posted on its website.
David Jacobson, one of the top claiming trainers of the mid-2010s, has been suspended 30 days by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit after one of his horses tested positive for an excessive amount of total carbon dioxide in the blood, according to HIWU records.
The 30-day suspension began on Thursday. HIWU said that Jacobson had admitted to the violation and accepted the penalty, which also included the disqualification of the horse Got Thunder from a second-place finish in a March 21 allowance race at Penn National.
Scott Spieth became the 35th jockey to reach 5,000 winners in North America earlier this week, achieving the milestone in the first week of the meeting at Presque Isle Downs.
Spieth, 57, piloted the Florida-bred filly Wheelingndealing to a one-length victory in an allowance race May 27 at Presque Isle. The filly is trained by his wife, Aldana Spieth. According to Equibase statistics, that gave Spieth 5,000 victories from 31,877 career Thoroughbred mounts, for earnings of more than $67.1 million.
After almost 50 years with Daily Racing Form, handicapper and writer Brian Mulligan, best known as the longtime “Sweep” for the Southern California circuit, is hanging up his tack and retiring this week.
As a young man from New Jersey, Mulligan did some backstretch work, including for then up-and-coming Southern California trainer Bill Spawr. From there, he moved to the Racing Form’s Los Angeles office, initially in the statistical department, back when the office still used manual typewriters and kept a horse’s workout records on index cards.
