WHO’S HOT
Nearly opens as the 10-1 favorite on the Derby Watch Top 20 after a dominant 5 3/4-length victory last Saturday in the Grade 3 Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park. He has now won three straight races after a head-scratching debut and will point to the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 28.
Golden Tempo successfully stretched out from six furlongs to 1 1/16 miles in a professional, if not overly fast, victory in the Grade 3 Lecomte on Jan. 17. The Risen Star on Feb. 14 should tell more.
For 21 consecutive years there wasn’t a Kentucky Derby run in which Todd Pletcher didn’t have a starter.
Until 2025. Thirty-six hours before the race, Grande, who had finished second in the Wood Memorial four weeks earlier, was scratched due to a cracked heel in his right front foot. Grande was Pletcher’s only entrant in a race in which he started multiple starters 20 of 24 years in which he ran. Thus, the longest streak of consecutive Derby appearances was over.
With high volume from the usual suspects and continued interest from Japanese horsemen, a total of 367 3-year-olds have been nominated to this year’s Triple Crown series.
The 367 figure is six fewer than last year’s early nominees.
Sunland Park in New Mexico canceled Sunday's racing for the third straight day, after cards were also called off on Friday and Saturday, due to track conditions, according to Equibase.
Some trainers in New Mexico said schedules have been interrupted due to rains that affected the racing surface.
The feature Sunday was to have been the La Coneja, which had drawn Corrina Corrina. She is the all-time leading earner among New Mexico-bred Thoroughbreds with a bankroll of $1.5 million.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Super Corredora, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2025, worked a half-mile in 49 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday in advance of her scheduled 2026 debut in the $100,000 Las Virgenes Stakes at a mile on Feb. 8.
Super Corredora was timed in 47.60 seconds by trainer John Sadler. A winner of 2 of 4 starts, Super Corredora won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar on Oct. 31 in her last start.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Watching Westwood on the lead often gives trainer John Shirreffs confidence.
“That’s how he is, he’s tough,” Shirreffs said on Sunday morning. “When horses come to him, he digs in.”
In Saturday’s Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes at 1 1/8 miles at Santa Anita, Westwood set the pace and was challenged on the turn by Getaway Car. As soon as a stretch duel seemed possible, Westwood had established a clear lead. He won by 2 3/4 lengths over Getaway Car for his first stakes win and second victory in 10 career starts.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Todd Pletcher reported that Holy Bull winner Nearly came out of Saturday's race in good order and was enjoying the unseasonably cold South Florida weather along with the rest of his stablemates at the Palm Beach Downs training center on Sunday.
“He’s looking well and feeling frisky like all of them here this morning,” Pletcher said.
The 4-year-old colt Magnitude won’t travel for the February 14 Saudi Cup after contracting an illness.
Trainer Steve Asmussen said Sunday morning that Magnitude had spiked a fever and would not ship from his Fair Grounds base to Florida, where a plane carrying American horses to Saudi Arabia leaves Monday morning.
Magnitude won the Clark Stakes in late November to cap his 3-year-old campaign and since has been aimed at the $20 million Saudi Cup, a one-turn dirt race over about 1 1/8 miles. The colt breezed Thursday at Fair Grounds in his final major workout for the race.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Veteran jockey Florent Geroux is moving to California.
Geroux, 39, who has ridden at Fair Grounds this winter, is scheduled to arrive at Santa Anita on Thursday and will begin riding on Friday, he said on Sunday.
Geroux will be represented by Matt Nakatani, who also books mounts on behalf of Umberto Rispoli. Rispoli is currently sidelined with leg and ankle injuries sustained when he was unseated in a turf sprint at Gulfstream Park on January 24.
A recent discussion with Rispoli and Nakatani prompted Geroux’s decision to move to California.
CHICAGO – Two days after the Illinois Racing Board suspended the state-issued license allowing Hawthorne Race Course to conduct an ongoing harness meet, the board held a regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday that provided no resolution to what local horsemen view as nothing less than an existential crisis.
The IRB on Monday evening issued a notification that they had suspended the license held by Suburban Downs, the name under which Hawthorne conducts the Standardbred side of the track’s business, after harness horsemen reported that Hawthorne-issued checks were bouncing.
