DEL MAR, Calif. – After watching three horses get injured – two while working and one while galloping – between 6:30 and 7:15 on Saturday morning at Del Mar, resulting in the death of one of the three, trainer Richard Mandella called off a planned workout at 7:45 for the champion mare Beholder, postponing it by 24 hours.
“I’ve got a stomach ache. She doesn’t, but I do,” Mandella said outside his barn. “We’ll do it tomorrow. She’ll gallop today.”
Clever Trevor, a Grade 1-winning millionaire who won the inaugural Remington Park Derby in 1989, was euthanized Friday night due to deteriorating health, according to his former trainer, Donnie K. Von Hemel. The gelding was 30.
Clever Trevor had spent most of his life on the Von Hemels’ farm in Piedmont, Okla., where he was cared for by Von Hemel’s wife, Robin, and teenage daughter, Tess. The horse was owned by the family of Don McNeil, who died last year at age 63.
Jockey Joe Steiner announced his retirement from riding on Thursday. Steiner was named on five horses at Emerald Downs this weekend, including Say It Slow in the $75,000 Washington Oaks, but he told his agent, Vito Lucarelli, that he won’t be riding.
The Pegasus World Cup, the planned $12 million race announced this year by The Stronach Group, has been assigned a Grade 1 rating for 2017 by the committee that assigns grades to U.S. stakes races, the committee announced on Friday.
The American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association voted to assign the highest rating in the U.S. to the race after noting that the Pegasus is expected to replace the Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., on the U.S. racing calendar.
The lone allowance Saturday at Gulfstream Park serves as the highlight of a 12-race card. The $43,000, first-level race scheduled for 7 1/2 furlongs on turf figures to have Smorgasbord, Whisper Onthe Wind, and Megeve as favorites in a field of 10 3-year-olds and up.
First post Saturday is 12:45 p.m. Eastern. The four-day week at Gulfstream began Thursday with a jackpot carryover of $130,147 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6, which runs Saturday from races 7-12.
The next stakes at Gulfstream are scheduled for Aug. 6 with the Florida Sire Series.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tom McCarthy, whose success as the owner and trainer of the rags-to-riches horse General Quarters was one of the top feel-good stories in racing in recent times, died early Thursday from melanoma. He was 82.
Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., canceled its Thursday racing program because of heat. The National Weather Service forecasts a high temperature of 99 degrees near the racetrack on Thursday afternoon. Heat indices are forecast to remain above 100 degrees into the evening. First post for the card was scheduled for 6:46 p.m. Central.
Steven Crist, the longtime Daily Racing Form executive and columnist, announced his retirement Wednesday. Crist, who put together an investment group to buy DRF in 1998, served as the company’s chief executive until 2002 and most recently was its editor and publisher emeritus.
Homeboykris, the 9-year-old gelding who collapsed and died after winning a race May 21 on the Preakness Stakes card at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland, had an impermissible level of a regulated medication in his system at the time of the race, according to an inquiry conducted by the Maryland Racing Commission.
