HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The unbeaten Newgrange completed a successful business trip Saturday by winning the Grade 3, $750,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
The Southern California-based runner also found some time to do a bit of sightseeing, trainer Bob Baffert joked Sunday.
“He took the shipping well,” Baffert said. “He took Fed-Ex to Memphis. He went to Graceland, paid his respects to Elvis, then vanned down."
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Life was good around trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn Sunday morning at Palm Beach Downs.
One day earlier, team Pletcher sent out four winners on the Pegasus World Cup program at Gulfstream Park, closing out the card by winning both the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf, with defending champion Colonel Liam, as well as the main-event $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational, with racing’s newest hero Life Is Good.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux was released from the St. Martin’s Parish correctional facility in Louisiana on a $25,000 bond on Friday after being arrested earlier that day for domestic abuse and battery, according to a spokesman from the St. Martin’s Parish Sheriff’s Dept.
The spokesman said Sunday that no court date has been set regarding the charges.
Desormeaux was arrested in Breaux Bridge, La., which is part of St. Martin’s Parish and is outside of Lafayette. Desormeaux was born in nearby Maurice and has family in the area.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The brilliant, unbeaten Flightline got back to work Sunday morning at Santa Anita, and immediately after his half-mile drill trainer John Sadler said Flightline would make his next start in the Grade 2, $200,000 San Carlos Stakes here March 5.
William “Bill” Delia, a former jockey who became a trainer and was always one of the most-popular figures in Northern California racing, died Thursday at age 75 from complications of COVID-19, according to a press release Friday from Golden Gate Fields.
Delia won 975 races and his horses earned $16.7 million during a training career that began in 1985 after he retired from race riding. One of his biggest wins came in 1997, when I’m a Jewel won the California Derby, then a Grade 3 event.
Richard L. Duchossois, who presided over the literal rise of Arlington Park yet played a part in its figurative fall, died Friday at his home in Barrington Hills, Ill., according to multiple sources. Duchossois had turned 100 on Oct. 7.
NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors on Friday neared the finish line in their case against veterinarian and animal-products salesman Seth Fishman, bringing their case to a close after calling 11 witnesses and presenting evidence from FBI wiretaps.
"At this time, the government rests its case," prosecutor Anden Chow told U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil on the trial's eighth day.
A short time later, the defense rested its case without calling any witnesses or putting the accused veterinarian on the stand to testify.
An official from the Breaux Bridge, La., police department confirmed early Friday afternoon that jockey Kent Desormeaux was taken into custody and arrested for “domestic abuse and battery” and was being transported to the St. Martin Correctional Facility, where he could remain for the weekend if unable to make bail arrangements on Friday.
The American Graded Stakes Committee has upgraded three stakes to Grade 1 status and downgraded two Grade 1s to Grade 2s, as part of its annual process to assign quality ratings to all eligible stakes in the U.S., the committee announced on Friday.
In total, the committee, which is administered by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, assigned grades to four more stakes than were graded in 2021. In total, 449 eligible stakes received grades for this year, compared to 445 in 2021.
Jamen Davidovich, a trainer who testified Thursday in a federal trial in which he admitted to administering illegal medications to his horses, will have his license suspended by the Ohio State Racing Commission, its executive director said Friday.
