ARCADIA, Calif. – The 2017 champions Unique Bella and West Coast worked at Santa Anita on Sunday in advance of major stakes in March in California and Dubai.
Unique Bella, the champion female sprinter last year, worked five furlongs in 58.60 seconds, the fastest of 103 works at the distance. Unique Bella will be a heavy favorite to win her third race of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting in the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Invitational at 1 1/8 miles on March 17.
A barn at Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, Calif., has been under quarantine since Wednesday after a pony at the track was euthanized and subsequently tested positive for exposure to the equine herpesvirus, the highly contagious disease that can prove fatal.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Recent maiden winner Telekinesis has been installed as the early 4-1 favorite for the 159th running of the $1 million Queen’s Plate, which will be run over 1 1/4 miles on Woodbine’s Tapeta on June 30.
The Queen’s Plate winterbook offers hypothetical odds on all 108 Canadian Triple Crown nominees, which includes 95 colts and geldings and 13 fillies. This year’s winterbook was compiled by Ron Gierkink and Alex Campbell of Daily Racing Form and Keith McCalmont, manager of communications for the Woodbine Entertainment Group.
A change in voting rules and a bumper crop of finalists has the potential to produce a large number of inductees this year into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, whose 2018 final ballot was released on Thursday.
There are 10 finalists – jockeys Robby Albarado, Corey Nakatani, and Craig Perret; trainers Mark Casse, John Shirreffs, and David Whiteley; and the racehorses Blind Luck, Gio Ponti, Havre de Grace, and Heavenly Prize.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It has been 16 years since Robbie Davis has ridden regularly in the afternoon. The now 56-year-old horse trainer still holds onto a dream of riding against his three children in a race.
“I think I want to do it one time,” said Davis, whose balky knee forced him to cut short an abbreviated comeback in 2013. “It’ll make a bit of history. It’d be fun.”
John Bisono rode his 1,000th winner Saturday – for the second time.
Bisono scored his 1,000th career victory in the United States on Saturday in the fifth race at Parx Racing aboard Irish Colonel for trainer Cal Lynch. Bisono was previously honored at Camerero racetrack in Puerto Rico for winning 1,000 races there.
Although Equibase credits Bisono with 821 wins in Puerto Rico, where he rode from 1997 to 2010, he says the correct figure is 1,055.
After a 16-year absence, the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships will return this year and offer a 25-race series that will run from mid-May to mid-September.
The championships are the result of a partnership between the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, its affiliates in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, seven racetracks, and the Pennsylvania HBPA.
Caesar Kimmel, a successful businessman and horse owner best known for his risqué naming of Thoroughbreds, died Saturday in south Florida. He was 91.
Kimmel, founder of and longtime executive at Warner Communications, bought his first horse in 1960 and remained in the business for almost 50 years. His most successful runners included Flat Fleet Feet, Miss Golden Circle, Hidden Lake, Flying Chevron, I’m Splendid, Blazing Fury, Buzz My Bell, Fabulously Fast, and Timber Reserve.
The mutuel field closed as a clear-cut favorite over the nearly inseparable duo of Good Magic and Bolt d’Oro after three days of betting into Pool 2 of the 2018 Kentucky Derby Future Wager. The pool opened Friday at noon Eastern and ran through 6 p.m. Sunday.
