SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Canterbury Park opens its richest meet ever Friday night, with 70 live dates scheduled through Sept. 12. The meet will offer more than $13 million in purses for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, making it the richest meet in Minnesota history.
Since Canterbury Park entered into a 2012 agreement with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the owners of the nearby Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, horse racing has flourished as a result of increased purses and greater participation.
A full sister to California Chrome, last year's Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year, makes her debut in a 4 1/2-furlong maiden race for 2-year-old fillies Friday at Golden Gate Fields.
Hope's Love, a chestnut filly by Lucky Pulpit out of Love the Chase, is the 8-5 morning-line favorite in a field of 10, and will be ridden by Ricardo Gonzalez. She is owned and was bred by Perry Martin and Steve Coburn, the owner-breeders' of California Chrome. Hope’s Love is trained by Steve Sherman, son of California Chrome’s trainer, Art Sherman.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher will not be getting his Preak on. Again.
Pletcher announced Tuesday that Materiality, the Florida Derby winner who finished sixth after early trouble in the Kentucky Derby, will not run in Saturday’s $1.5 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico and instead will be pointed to the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown, on June 6.
BALTIMORE – He ran so big in the Kentucky Derby that you just can’t help but think that with a little more luck or a little more oomph, the runner-up might well have won the Derby – and he surely rates an excellent chance in the Preakness on the merits of that huge effort.
Be careful in your thinking.
With five of the top six finishers from the Kentucky Derby – including the first three – all under consideration for the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico, very few are willing to take them on, which could result in the smallest Preakness field since 2000.
The Pimlico Special and Black-Eyed Susan top a strong 14-race Preakness eve card Friday at Pimlico.
The program consists of seven stakes, four allowance races, one optional claimer, and two maiden races. The fields should average more than 10 horses a race after scratches.
:: Black Eyed-Susan Stakes/Pimlico Special: Watch live video of Friday’s card from Pimlico.
Here is a look at the day’s races:
Jockey Deshawn Parker managed to avoid serious injury during a scary-looking spill during the stretch run of Saturday’s $75,000 Tall Stacks Stakes at Belterra Park.
Parker was moving toward an opening with his stakes-winning 3-year-old colt Gliding Along from sixth place when Mound, ridden by Megan Fadlovich, shied from a right-handed whip and Gliding Along clipped his rival’s heels. Parker somersaulted over his mount’s head and was thrown to the track.
California Chrome’s scheduled workout in Newmarket, England, on Saturday was postponed until Wednesday to accommodate jockey Frankie Dettori’s schedule, trainer Art Sherman said.
Dettori is scheduled to work California Chrome in preparation for the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.
Danzig Moon, fifth in the Kentucky Derby, will come back in the Preakness Stakes, meaning four of the first five finishers from the Derby are bound for the second leg of the Triple Crown at Pimlico on May 16.
Danzig Moon joins the first three Derby finishers – American Pharoah, Firing Line, and Dortmund – as Preakness runners. The sixth-place finisher from the Derby, Materiality, is still under consideration for the race, too.
Albiano, an undefeated Kentucky-bred filly who went through the sales ring at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton Florida March sale of 2-year-olds in training, is one of two fillies in Sunday’s $1,600,400 NHK Mile for 3-year-olds at Tokyo Racecourse.
Albiano, by Harlan’s Holiday, has won three races from seven furlongs to a mile, all on turf, including the Grade 3 Flower Cup at Nakayama in March. The Grade 1 NHK Mile will be her first start at the highest level and her first start against males.
