DEL MAR, Calif. - Domestic Spending and United on Thursday were both scratched from Saturday’s $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf by their connections after both geldings had inflammation in a front leg.
Their scratches opened up spots in the starting gate for both Bolshoi Ballet and Channel Maker to make the field.
DEL MAR, Calif. – When Charlie Appleby turned up for the first time at a California racetrack, at Santa Anita in October 2013, he surely didn’t mind getting away from racing in his native England for several days.
To be fair, the heat had dissipated from a raging firestorm Appleby had walked a few months earlier, when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, head of the international racing and breeding powerhouse Godolphin, tapped Appleby to take over the training yard at Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket, northeast of London.
With a little luck, or even an assist from Irish stewards in September, and better weather in Paris last month, Tarnawa would be in the midst of an unbeaten season in advance of Saturday’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar.
Del Mar
Weather: FoggyTemp. 56Track: FastTurf: Firm
DEL MAR, Calif. – While the North American horses wrapped up all of their serious work for this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup at various venues around the country last weekend, the Europeans, who arrived late on the scene, are still playing a little catch-up in that regard. Many of them took care of that issue here Tuesday morning, including Team Ballydoyle, all of whom got the chance to really stretch their legs over the main track here Tuesday under the watchful eye of trainer Aiden O’Brien.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Look at Del Mar, all grown up now. What was once a sleepy little track built by celebrities Bing Crosby and Pat O’Brien, with a grandstand that looked like it belonged at a county fair, has morphed in recent decades into a modern, major facility that ranks as one of the elite racetracks in the country.
How much have things changed over the years? So much so that the first time Steve Asmussen came here, in the summer of 1982, he was an apprentice jockey.
“Quite the place for a 16-year-old,” he said while watching his horses train Wednesday morning.
Del Mar
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 58
Track: Fast
Turf: Firm
DEL MAR, Calif. - It was a cold, damp, dreary morning at Del Mar on Tuesday. While the weather perhaps was a bit uncomfortable for the locals, it must have made the large European contingent on hand for the 2021 Breeders’ Cup feel right at home.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine Entertainment has announced the passing of Hall of Fame jockey Hugo Dittfach at the age of 85.
A winner of 4,000 races, Dittfach arrived in Canada following World War II, a refugee from East Germany who spent three years in a Russian concentration camp in Poland.
While working at a restaurant in Calgary, the diminutive Dittfach received a suggestion from a patron that he pursue horse racing due to his size. Launching his career in 1956, Dittfach was a leading rider in Western Canada before relocating to Ontario.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Estilo Talentoso is out of Saturday’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar due to an issue with her right fore, according to trainer Juan Arriagada, reducing the field for the $1 million race to five.
“She’s a little off in her right front,” Arriagada said. “It’s nothing serious but the state [veterinarian] is very strict here and they would prefer to take her out of the race.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Things went well, not spectacularly, for European 2-year-olds at the previous Del Mar Breeders’ Cup in 2017.
Now, the 2-year-old races all come Friday, but then they were spread between Friday and Saturday, and the Juvenile Turf Sprint didn’t yet exist.
Mendelssohn, trained by Aidan O’Brien, won the Juvenile Turf but the other Euros were fifth, sixth, ninth, 10th, and 11th. In the Juvenile Fillies Turf, overseas runners managed only third, seventh, eighth, 11th, 13th, and 14th, that last-place finisher the O’Brien-trained favorite, Happily.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Ain’t Easy on Monday was not entered in Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies when she jogged unsatisfactorily for trainer Phil D’Amato, and she was subsequently discovered to have a small chip in her left front ankle and will undergo arthroscopic surgery, D’Amato said Tuesday morning at Del Mar.
