SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Charge It, the 23-length winner of the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park on July 2, will be forced to miss Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga due to a foot abscess, trainer Todd Pletcher said Sunday.
Charge It’s defection takes out a major contender and potential pace player from the marquee race of the summer for 3-year-olds.
The trainer Richard Baltas has filed a lawsuit claiming that the California Horse Racing Board violated his due-process rights when it issued a summary suspension of the trainer in May after alleging that video surveillance captured images of his employees administering substances to horses on the day they were entered to race.
The suit, filed in California Superior Court for the Country of Los Angeles, is seeking $12 million in damages, alleging “malice and oppression” by the CHRB and its staff.
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Monday is scheduled to begin what will likely be a multi-day hearing to consider an appeal by the Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert of the 90-day suspension he served earlier this year as a result of a positive from last year’s Kentucky Derby.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Chad Brown, a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award as champion trainer, was arrested by Saratoga police on Wednesday night on a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of breathing, according to the Saratoga Springs police department.
Brown, 43, appeared before a judge on Thursday morning for his arraignment, where the assistant district attorney Kayla Potter said that he had pushed a woman down a flight of stairs at his home, pinned her to the ground, and tried to choke her, according to local reports.
Emmanuel “Manny” Tortora, a perennial leading trainer in South Florida for some 20 years during his heyday, died of sepsis Aug. 7 in an assisted-living facility in Ocala, Fla. He was 86.
Tortora was best known for his work with Mecke, a deep-closing Florida-bred who won the 1996 Arlington Million and six other graded stakes when earning nearly $2.5 million for owner James R. Lewis Jr.
DEL MAR, Calif. - All-sources handle at the current Del Mar summer meeting has shown an increase compared to the 2021 meeting and could threaten the all-time record set in 2005.
Through Saturday, the 14th day of the 31-day season, all-sources handle, including ontrack, simulcast and account wagering sources, was 7 percent higher than the corresponding day of the 2021 season, according to track chief financial officer Mike Ernst.
CYPRESS, Calif. - Danjer, the 2021 Quarter Horse World Champion, has been invited to the $750,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos on Dec. 10 along with 2021 champion 3-year-old Empressum and Apollitical Pence, the winner of the race the last two years, track officials announced on Sunday.
The Champion of Champions, at 440 yards, is the richest race for older Quarter Horses and annually plays a role in championship voting.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The 2-year-old Cave Rock was hardly a stone’s throw from the starting gate in Saturday’s seventh race at Del Mar when jockey Juan Hernandez thought the race was over.
“He broke like a rocket,” Hernandez recalled Sunday morning. “I thought he would win in the first couple of jumps.”
Cave Rock did win, but the performance was much better than Hernandez, trainer Bob Baffert or owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman could have anticipated.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There were discussions prior to Casa Creed’s impressive victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Fourstardave and there will inevitably be plenty more in the days and weeks to come about what path to take regarding his 2022 Breeders’ Cup status. But immediately after Casa Creed’s last-to-first triumph in the one-mile Fourstardave at Saratoga, those talks were tabled to allow the connections to just celebrate.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority will add a horsemen’s advisory committee to consult with its management over policies, rules, and procedures, the chief executive of the authority said during a keynote address at The Jockey Club Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing on Sunday.
