Bleecker Street, who began her career with seven straight victories, including the Grade 1 New York Stakes, has been retired from racing and will be bred to Into Mischief, trainer Chad Brown said.
Bleecker Street, a daughter of Quality Road out of the Exchange Rate mare Lemon Liqueur, was owned by Peter Brant. She began her career in August 2021 with a maiden victory at Monmouth Park and won an allowance at The Meadowlands that October.
A U.S. District Court judge in Louisville has denied a motion from Bob Baffert that would prevent Churchill Downs from continuing to ban the trainer, a decision that will likely result in Arabian Knight, Baffert’s top 3-year-old, being transferred from his barn to seek a spot in this year’s Kentucky Derby.
Linda Rice, the leading trainer at Aqueduct’s winter meet, has been suspended 10 days and fined $1,000 by the New York Gaming Commission for the finding of an overage of the therapeutic medication phenylbutazone (Bute) in a post-race test of Winter Pool, who won the first race at Aqueduct on Jan. 7.
Both Rice and New York State Gaming Commission steward Braulio Baez Jr. confirmed the penalty, though as of early Thursday afternoon, it had not yet been posted on the commission website.
Multiple Grade 1 winner Afternoon Deelites was euthanized on Feb. 14 at Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., due to complications from colic.
At 31, Afternoon Deelites was the oldest resident at Old Friends. His death came less than a week after that of his owner-breeder Burt Bacharach, who died Feb. 8 at age 94.
Afternoon Deelites, by Private Terms, was bred in West Virginia by Bacharach's Blue Seas Music, and raced in the music icon’s colors under the care of trainer Richard Mandella. The millionaire won seven of his 12 starts and missed the board only twice.
While Mark Casse will be represented Saturday by Determinedly in the Risen Star at Fair Grounds, the Hall of Fame trainer has updates on the two 3-year-olds he ran last Saturday in the Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
Classic Car Wash “was a pretty good third” behind Litigate and Groveland in the Sam Davis, which likely will get him a return trip to Oldsmar, Fla., for the Tampa Bay Derby on March 11, Casse said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Skinner, Grade 1-placed as a maiden 2-year-old last summer, jumped into the Derby picture with an emphatic maiden win Feb. 12 at Santa Anita, his first start since October. Skinner won the mile race by more than three lengths with a noteworthy 95 Beyer Speed Figure.
John Shirreffs, who trains the son of Curlin for owners Lee and Susan Searing, said Skinner was immature last season.
“In the beginning, everything was new to him,” he said. “He wasn’t really established and secure in his position, in his training.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Practical Move, upset winner of the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity, will launch his 3-year-old campaign in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes on March 4 at Santa Anita, skipping the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes on Feb. 28 at Oaklawn Park, trainer Tim Yakteen confirmed.
“You prefer to run out of your backyard,” Yakteen said Saturday at Santa Anita, where Practical Move smoked five furlongs in 59 seconds, the day’s fastest five-furlong work. It was a super work over the Santa Anita surface he will race over in his comeback
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- John Veitch, the Hall of Fame trainer whose most famous horse, Alydar, was never a champion but wound up in the Hall of Fame alongside him, died on Tuesday in Lexington, Ky., according to friends of the trainer. Veitch was 77.
Veitch, who came from a training family, was most prominently associated with Alydar, who famously finished second to Affirmed in all three Triple Crown races in 1978. While Alydar was never named a champion, he was elected into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1989. Veitch followed him into the Hall of Fame in 2007.
Joe Bravo missed his lone mount at Santa Anita on Sunday after he was unseated from Decorated My Life in Saturday’s $102,500 Sweet Life Stakes.
Bravo was hospitalized late Saturday afternoon and released in the evening after undergoing tests, according to his agent, Matt Nakatani.
“He was a little sore from yesterday,” Nakatani said on Sunday morning. “We didn’t want to push it too much.”
