Leon Blusiewicz, a trainer of multiple stakes winners during a 40-plus-year career and a Damon Runyon-type character, died Sunday in a Maryland hospital due to kidney failure. He was 92.
Blusiewicz, a native of Baltimore, won 184 races from 1,243 starts from 1976-2017, according to Equibase statistics. He conditioned graded stakes winners Willa On the Move, Snow Plow, Spartiatis, Mighty Magee, Skipat, Millions and Tong Po as well as many other listed stakes winners.
Robert Lothenbach, the most prominent owner and breeder to call Minnesota’s Canterbury Park home, died on Nov. 14 unexpectedly in his sleep, according to family members. Lothenbach, who had this year been elected into the Canterbury Park Hall of Fame, was 64.
Eclipse Award champions Accelerate and Roy H are the newest residents of the Kentucky Horse Park's Hall of Champions, the Lexington, Ky., destination announced this week.
The two fill a void in the barn, which was briefly without Thoroughbred representatives following the passing of Horse of the Year Point Given this past September, and champion Funny Cide, in July. Accelerate and Roy H will reside in the barn alongside Standardbreds Marion Marauder, Mr. Muscleman, Western Dreamer, and Won The West.
Sean Boarman, a 43-year-old native of Kentucky, has been officially declared the winner of the live-money Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, one of the most lucrative handicapping tournaments in the U.S.
Boarman, who was born and raised in Lexington, amassed 231,238 points, in large part by focusing a large part of his bankroll on a successful win bet on White Abbario in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. His total live-money winnings combined with the grand prize amounted to $642,363, the largest total in the 15-year history of the event.
Fierceness, the winner of the Nov. 3 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the leading candidate for 2-year-old champion colt, has been made the 15-1 individual betting favorite for the second Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool, which will open on Thursday at noon.
Fierceness is one of 38 individual betting interests listed in the pool. The overwhelming favorite is expected to be an entry of “all other colts and geldings” that are not listed individually, tabbed at 4-5 on the morning line. Another entry comprises “all other fillies.”
Tony Calo, the race caller at Finger Lakes racetrack in upstate New York for the past 15 years, has been hired as the new caller at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., the track’s owner, Churchill Downs Inc., announced Monday.
Calo will replace Jimmy McNerney, who is returning to a job as a jockey’s agent this winter. Calo will start in his new position when the Turfway meet opens Nov. 29.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Woodbine scrapped Sunday's 10th and final race after an accident in the starting gate involving Beer Mosa, who was scratched from the maiden event before the cancelation but was reportedly uninjured.
Beer Mosa’s apprentice rider, Desean Bynoe, and an unnamed assistant starter were both taken to hospital for assessment. Bynoe sustained a broken leg, and the assistant starter was subsequently released and has been resting at home.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Nothing Better, winner of Saturday’s Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship, could be considered for a start in the $2 million 1351 Turf Sprint at Riyadh on Feb. 24, trainer Jorge Duarte Jr. said Sunday.
Last year, after he won the Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship, Nothing Better ran in the $100,000 Janus Stakes at Gulfstream, where he got beat a head. Duarte said if he’s going to run Nothing Better before next spring, he’d rather shoot for a lucrative race like the 1351 with the potential for a prep race in Saudi on Jan. 20.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Integration, the dominant winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Hill Prince Stakes at Aqueduct, will soon head to Florida for the winter, but it is not yet decided where and when he will make his next start.
While Shug McGaughey said he’s not opposed to considering the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf on Jan. 27 at Gulfstream Park for Integration, the Hall of Fame trainer seemed more focused on races later in the year. McGaughey mentioned the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Derby undercard in May as an early season target for Integration.
Work All Week, the 2014 Breeders' Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award divisional champion, died Monday, Nov. 13. The 14-year-old Illinois-bred gelding suffered a paddock accident that proved fatal at Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., where he had been living in retirement since 2020.
