Parx Racing has canceled its Monday card in anticipation of a strong cold front that is predicted to move into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast beginning Sunday afternoon, according to David Osojnak, the track's director of racing.
Charles Town and Penn National have canceled their Saturday night cards.
The equine herpesvirus quarantine at Parx Racing put in place Jan. 11 will remain in force through Jan. 30, but no other horses in Barn 27 have spiked a fever or become ill in the past week, according to David Osojnak, the track's director of racing.
A horse stabled in Barn 27 with trainer Ramon Martin came down with a temperature Jan. 8 and was sent to the Mid-Atlantic Equine Center in Ringoes, N.J. That horse tested positive for the non-neurological strain of the equine herpesvirus and was placed in the facility's isolation center.
Bodacious Eagle, who won the All American Gold Cup at Ruidoso Downs in September and the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos last month, was named the 2018 World Champion Quarter Horse in a ceremony at Oklahoma City on Thursday evening.
Owned by Johnny Trotter of Hereford, Texas, and trained through the year by the father and son team of Mike and Justin Joiner, Bodacious Eagle won 3 of 7 starts and earned $453,600 in 2018. A 7-year-old gelding, Bodacious Eagle has won 14 of 33 starts and earned $1,297,536 in his career.
Multiple graded stakes winner and millionaire Vyjack has returned to training in California.
Vyjack is owned by David Wilkenfeld, racing under his Pick Six Racing moniker, and is trained by Phil D’Amato. Now 9 years old, the gelding last raced when second by a head in the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile in August 2017. He continued to train into 2018, but was retired last June when he was initially diagnosed with a mild suspensory strain.
Three riders were taken to the hospital and two horses were euthanized following a race 6 spill at Laurel Park on Friday that affected five of the seven horses in the seven-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies.
Tuffy's Way was racing in third position nearing the stretch when she broke down, throwing Trevor McCarthy to the ground. Lucky Dilly fell over Tuffy's Way, with jockey Horacio Karamanos going down hard.
Alluring Prospect jumped the fallen horses and went on to finish third despite being eased in the stretch by jockey Rosario Montanez.
After pulling off one surprise in a Grade 1 race and nearly pulling off another, it was no surprise that Knicks Go is a finalist for the Eclipse Award for champion 2-year-old male.
Knicks Go, a son of Paynter owned by the Korean Racing Authority, gave trainer Ben Colebrook and jockey Albin Jimenez their first Grade 1 victory when he scored by 5 1/2 lengths as the 70-1 rank outsider in a 13-horse field in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland in October.
As training hours wound down on the morning of Feb. 18 at Santa Anita, Bob Baffert was asked about a first-time starter by Scat Daddy who was to make his debut that afternoon.
“I’ve got big plans for that colt,” he said.
A few hours later, Justify burst onto the scene, and though his career lasted only five more starts over the next 111 days, what he accomplished in that time was remarkable.
“You’ll never see another horse like this,” Baffert said while admiring Justify in his stall at Pimlico the morning after the Preakness.
It is unusual in this age of specialization to find a 3-year-old as effective in top-class company on dirt as on turf, but Catholic Boy proved himself that rare commodity, winning Grade 1 races on both those surfaces during a 2018 campaign in which he fashioned a terrific second act after failing to make the spring classics.
Unique Bella was special right from the start.
“We thought she was a good one right away,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said, reflecting on her works as an unraced juvenile in summer 2016.
She was a gray blueblood – sired by Tapit, produced by Breeders’ Cup winner Unrivaled Belle. The hope was that Unique Bella would run to her pedigree. It turned out, she accomplished a lot more.
If she were not a top-class racehorse Abel Tasman could have been a house pet.
“She was one of the sweetest mares,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “She was sweet and kind, like a female version of American Pharoah. You could send a child to her stall to pet her.”
