BALTIMORE - Three-time graded stakes winner Gunnevera galloped a slow and easy 1 1/2 miles at Pimlico on Tuesday but will pick up the pace Wednesday, according to trainer Antonio Sano and his son Alex, the stable's racing manager.
Gunnevera, who finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby, arrived at Pimlico on Saturday. He walked the shed row Sunday and then jogged two miles Monday.
BALTIMORE - Conquest Mo Money, the runner-up in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and the Grade 3 Sunland Park Derby in his last two starts, got his first taste of the Pimlico racing surface on Tuesday as he continues preparations for the $1.5 million Preakness this Saturday, the second jewel of the Triple Crown.
Jockey Jorge Carreno, who has ridden Conquest Mo Money in all five of his races, supervised Conquest Mo Money's training Tuesday and was aboard for his gallop. Trainer Miguel Hernandez and owners Tom and Sandy McKenna were expected to arrive in Baltimore later Tuesday.
BALTIMORE – The curse of Apollo doesn’t pertain to the Preakness.
It is an often-cited fact that no horse has won the Kentucky Derby without having raced at age 2 since Apollo in 1882. In the Preakness, however, three horses in the last 17 years – Red Bullet (2000), Bernardini (2006), and Curlin (2007) – have captured the middle jewel of the Triple Crown without having raced as a juvenile.
Do two weeks really make that much of a difference?
Probably not.
Brendan Walsh grew up on a farm in County Cork, Ireland. But don’t assume he was born into horse racing.
“We had cattle, crops – it was that kind of farm,” Walsh said. “It was the kind of farm that you had to work fairly hard at. My old man worked the [crap] out of me. And I hated farm work.”
None of Walsh’s family, it turns out, could tell a mane from a tail. Yet young Brendan somehow became smitten with horses while he was little more than a wee lad.
Royal Mo, who suffered a career-ending sesamoid fracture to his right front ankle Sunday at Pimlico Race Course during what was to be his last drill for the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, was scheduled to undergo surgery Monday to fuse the joint, trainer John Shirreffs said.
The Maryland Jockey Club has made a conscious effort in recent years to improve business on the Black-Eyed Susan program at Pimlico, which will be held again Friday, the day before the 142nd Preakness.
Last year, the MJC announced a record crowd of 47,956 on Black-Eyed Susan Day, an increase of 18 percent over the 42,700 who were said to have attended the prior year. Handle on the card a year ago was $18.66 million, a 4 percent increase over 2015.
Royal Mo suffered a career-ending sesamoid fracture to his right front ankle on Sunday morning at Pimlico Race Course during a workout that was to be his last drill for the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, trainer John Shirreffs said.
Shirreffs said Royal Mo had fractured the inside sesamoid in that ankle.
Scorpiancer established himself as the early-season leader among American steeplechase horses with a dominating performance in Saturday’s Grade 1, $200,000 Calvin Houghland Iroquois at Percy Warner Park in Nashville, Tenn.
A Grade 1 winner during the fall at Belmont Park after finishing fourth in last year’s Iroquois, the 8-year-old Scorpiancer tuned up for the richest spring race on the National Steeplechase Association calendar by winning the Grade 3 Temple Gwathmey going 2 1/2 miles last month.
Gulfstream Park will have a guaranteed pool of $300,000 in its Rainbow 6 jackpot for Saturday. The 20-cent wager will run on races 6-11.
Post for the first race is 1:15 p.m. Eastern.
The Rainbow 6 carryover jackpot is paid out only when there is a single unique ticket sold with all six winners. On days when there is no unique winning ticket sold, 70 percent of that day’s pool goes back to those holding tickets with the most winners, while 30 percent is carried over to the jackpot pool, according to a press release from Gulfstream.
