It’s quite possible that in order to be successful again, Napoleon Solo will have to be turned back in distance. After all, he went 2 for 2 in races contested around one turn as a 2-year-old, including an electric performance winning the Grade 1 Champagne, a one-turn mile race, at Aqueduct last fall.
Golden Tempo, the Kentucky Derby winner, will bypass the Preakness Stakes on May 16 at Laurel Park and point to the Belmont Stakes on June 6 at Saratoga, trainer Cherie DeVaux said Wednesday.
“He ran the race of his life. We want to give him more time to get over that,” DeVaux said. “We feel it’s in his best interest to give him more time. He came out of the race in good order. We are pointing towards the Belmont.”
If Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo shows up in Laurel, Md., for the Preakness on May 16, it looks like there will be a large number of horses – virtually none of whom participated in the Kentucky Derby – willing to take him on in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown.
As of Monday, there were 15 horses – including Golden Tempo – under consideration for the Preakness, which this year is being held at Laurel Park due to ongoing construction at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. The Preakness is limited to 14 starters, but two also-eligibles can be carded.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Here’s the scary thing. As Always a Runner made just the third start of her career in winning the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks on Friday night, and trainer Chad Brown thought it was the first race of her career she was 100 percent, it stands to reason there’s room to improve.
“Possible, yeah,” Brown said. “She just ran a remarkable race, and we’re so delighted with it. She really delivered.”
ARCADIA, Calif. - Friday’s program at Santa Anita has a carryover of $42,057 in the $2 pick six.
No one hit the pick six on Sunday, the most recent day of racing, after longshots such as Maker and Sons ($54) won the fifth race, and Tulavia’s World ($26.60) won the seventh race.
The carryover was confirmed after He’s a Gangster ($11.20) won the eighth race, the second-to-last race of the day.
The Friday night prime-time broadcast of the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in Louisville averaged 2.4 million viewers, according to Churchill’s broadcast partner, NBC Sports. That's a record for the race, and is nearly eight times the average viewership for the race in the prior three years.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Saluto, a nine-length winner of his debut in a maiden race for 2-year-olds at Santa Anita on Friday, will be considered for the $225,000 Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs on June 28, trainer Steve Knapp said on Sunday.
“He came out of it fantastic,” Knapp said. “Now we have to look around and find somewhere to run.”
There are no stakes for 2-year-olds at the current Santa Anita spring meeting, or at the Los Alamitos summer meeting in late June and early July.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Big City Lights returned from a layoff of more than five months to win a seven-furlong allowance race at Santa Anita on Saturday.
The 7-year-old horse showed enough for trainer Richard Mandella to plan a start in the $100,000 Thor’s Echo Stakes for statebreds at six furlongs on May 23.
Ridden by Kazushi Kimura, who had four winners on the 11-race program, Big City Lights was third on the backstretch before moving closer to the front on the turn. Big City Lights, the 4-5 favorite, fought through the stretch to win by a half-length over Speedy Wilson.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Early indications are that Golden Tempo came out of his victory in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby in good order and will be considered, but is not yet definite, to run in the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on May 16, trainer Cherie DeVaux said Sunday morning.
LOUISVILLE - Great White, who flipped behind the Kentucky Derby starting gate and was a late scratch, emerged from the incident without serious injury, as did jockey Alex Achard.
Trainer John Ennis said Great White was “perfect” following the incident. The gelding was vanned from Churchill Downs back to the trainer’s base at the Thoroughbred Training Center in Lexington on Sunday morning.
