HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.- Will Take Charge will carry high weight of 123 pounds when he makes his 2014 debut in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap next Sunday at Gulfstream Park.
Will Take Charge will concede four pounds to Revolutionary, who was next in line at 119 pounds. Lea (117), River Seven (116), Neck ‘n Neck (116), Romansh (116), Uncaptured (116), Bourbon Courage (115), and Joshua’s Comprise (114) are also expected to start.
When the 3-year-old gelding Bairds held on by a nose as the even-money favorite in Friday night’s seventh race at Penn National, it was a bittersweet moment for trainer Michael Pappada.
Bairds provided Pappada with the 1,000th win of his career, exactly three weeks after delivering victory number 999. But after the race, Bairds changed hands, thanks to a $10,000 claim placed by trainer John Locke.
Pappada registered his first win at Aqueduct on Feb. 20, 1976.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Jockey David Cohen will be out a minimum of eight weeks after suffering a broken leg when the filly Recoupe kicked him in the paddock prior to Saturday’s fourth race at Aqueduct.
According to Cohen’s agent, Bill Castle, Cohen broke both the fibula and tibia in his right leg. Castle said that Cohen was expected to be released from North Shore University Hospital Saturday night and that he would visit a Manhattan-based orthopedist in the next day or two to determine if surgery is required.
Led by Eclipse Award winner Shared Belief, Holy Bull winner Cairo Prince, and a record-setting 42 nominations from a single trainer, Todd Pletcher, a total of 413 3-year-olds were announced on Saturday by Churchill Downs as the nominees to the 2014 Triple Crown.
Hard to take too big a stand against heavily favored STRAPPING GROOM (#1, 3-5), a Grade 1 winner last year at Saratoga, who enters here off of 110 Beyer demolition of the Gravesend Handicap over this track. He faces some classy old sprinters in this spot, but will have little trouble beating them with his best race.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – They used to race on Tuesdays here at Tampa Bay Downs, a fairly obvious sign that they were not a major winter track.
Today, however, with simulcast gamblers having spoken with their dollars, Tampa essentially is the fourth-most popular winter signal in the country, behind only the power trio of Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita Park, and Aqueduct. Fair Grounds and Oaklawn Park also belong in that next tier of signals, but in whatever order they deserve to be ranked, Tampa has come a long way in climbing past them in the proverbial food chain.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Jose Arias, who won the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship at Treasure Island in Las Vegas last Sunday, will appear at Tom Quigley’s paddock seminar at Santa Anita on Saturday morning.
Arias, 36, who lives in nearby Bell Gardens, Calif., will be interviewed by Quigley from 11:20 a.m. to noon, discussing his tournament win and Saturday’s nine-race program at Santa Anita. The event will be held in the paddock gardens, between the walking ring and the track’s gift store.
The parking lot at defunct Hollywood Park could be home to an NFL team in the future.
According to reports published in the Los Angeles Times and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stan Kroenke, owner of the St. Louis Rams, has acquired a 60-acre parcel of land between the closed racetrack and the Forum on the west side of the racetrack property.
The parcel of land is adjacent to Laffit Pincay Drive and was vacant space used for parking in recent years, mostly for events at the Forum.
