The first Kentucky Derby future wager pool of 2024 will be held this weekend, with little on the schedule to influence the odds of the 39 individual betting interests.
As is customary for the first future bet of the year, the heavy morning-line favorite, at 7-5, is the “all others” entry, which gives a bettor all of the horses from the foal crop of 2021 that are not listed as individual horses. That’s roughly 17,800 horses, if you want to do the math.
Southern California tracks will be forced to reduce prize money through 2024, continuing a trend that began last spring, amid a decline in handle that has created ongoing purse overpayments at Del Mar and Santa Anita, according to a letter track officials sent to the California Horse Racing Board earlier this month.
Track Phantom is not hiding in the shadows. After acing his stakes debut Dec. 23 in the Gun Runner Stakes, Track Phantom wheels back Jan. 20 at Fair Grounds to make his first 3-year-old start in the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte Stakes.
The 1 1/16-mile Lecomte is the first of six 42-point qualifying races on Churchill Downs’ Road to the Kentucky Derby and is the last of 13 races on Fair Grounds’ second major card of its season. The Lecomte winner gets 20 Derby points, which, historically, gives a horse a solid chance to get into the Derby in some years.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Ruby Nell, the winner of three stakes in her last four starts, will have a new rider for the Grade 3 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf Invitational at Gulfstream Park on January 27.
Frankie Dettori will ride Ruby Nell in place of Edwin Maldonado, trainer Richard Mandella said on Sunday.
Maldonado, who has ridden Ruby Nell in her last six starts, sustained a shoulder injury during morning workouts on Jan. 6. While Maldonado plans to resume riding on Saturday, Mandella proceeded with the jockey change.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The last time The Chosen Vron and Kings River Knight met they finished a nose apart when first and second in the Sensational Star Stakes for turf sprinters at Santa Anita last March.
Both have since have outstanding careers, including stakes wins a half-hour apart against statebreds on Saturday at Santa Anita.
The wins may lead to a rematch between the 6-year-old geldings in the $100,000 Tiznow Stakes for California-breds at a mile at Santa Anita on Feb. 19, a race The Chosen Vron won by 6 1/2 lengths last year.
Luis Yamil Marcano, who won 52 races as an apprentice jockey in 2023, died on Sunday night after being involved in a two-vehicle collision in his native Puerto Rico, according to multiple reports. Marcano was 19.
Marcano, who finished eighth in the standings at Belterra Park in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2023, was riding a motorcycle in San Juan on Sunday night when he was hit by a pickup truck, according to Puerto Rico newspapers. The driver of the truck fled the scene. Marcano died of his injuries.
The purse for the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, the most prestigious race in the United States, has been raised to $5 million, Churchill Downs announced Wednesday.
The $2 million increase in the purse will make the Derby the second-richest race in the country, just behind the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. The Derby purse had been $3 million since 2019. It had been run for $2 million from 2005-18.
John Moynihan, bloodstock adviser to Stonestreet Farm, trainer Philip Bauer, who is coming off a career year, and Thoroughbred owner Richard Rigney were among those who escaped serious injury in a plane crash in Australia on Monday.
The sprinter Big City Lights won for the first time in 17 months in an allowance race at 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on Saturday that was likely a prep for the 5-year-old’s graded stakes debut next month.
Trainer Richard Mandella said on Sunday that Big City Lights may return in the Grade 3 Palos Verdes Stakes, a $100,000 race at six furlongs on Feb. 10.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Of the 30 flat horses that are finalists for the 2023 Eclipse Awards in age or surface categories, only the 3-year-old colt Muth is based in California.
Muth was the star 2-year-old of 2023 on the West Coast, winning the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita in October, and finishing second by 6 1/4 lengths to Fierceness in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in November.
Fierceness, based on the East Coast, is widely expected to be named champion 2-year-old male of 2023.
