ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario came out with new rules on Saturday regarding entering horses at Woodbine that resulted in a host of scratches on the Saturday card. The rules were instituted following several catastrophic breakdowns and injuries on the main track between Oct. 28 and Nov. 29.
The AGCO directed Woodbine to implement the following measures effective immediately, until further notice:
California-based trainer Ben Cecil, who died on Friday after a lengthy battle with cancer, had a nearly unparalleled introduction to Thoroughbred racing.
Cecil was the nephew of the legendary British trainer Henry Cecil. Growing up in Britain, it was easy for Ben Cecil to follow his uncle’s career during a time when he had one of Europe’s leading stables. Henry Cecil won 25 classic races in Britain.
On a day trip with his uncle to Newbury Racecourse, west of London, a teenaged Ben Cecil saw the sport from a different perspective, realizing what he wanted to do.
A barn at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Youngstown, Ohio, has been placed under quarantine after a horse at the track tested positive for strangles, a highly contagious bacterial infection of the upper airway, according to a notice distributed on Tuesday by a Kentucky agricultural official.
Ricardo Santana Jr., a 32-year-old jockey who has cracked the top 10 in annual earnings three times in the past five years, will face a “thorough review” of his suitability to ride by Kentucky regulators when he is released later this week from a seven-day prison sentence brought on by two drunken-driving arrests, according to the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation.
Santana began serving the sentence on Nov. 20 and is scheduled to be released on Friday, according to records of the Shelby County Detention Center. He last rode on Nov. 17 at Churchill Downs.
Two also-rans in the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile have been made the morning-line co-favorites among the individual entries for the second Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool, according to a list distributed by Churchill Downs, the administrator of the pool, on Monday night.
Chancer McPatrick and East Avenue, sixth and ninth in the Juvenile behind gate-to-wire winner Citizen Bull, were posted at 10-1 on the morning line for the pool, which opens Thursday and closes Sunday night. Citizen Bull was one of three horses among the 38 individual entries listed at 20-1.
Kenny McPeek, trainer of 2024 Horse of the Year candidate Thorpedo Anna and Kentucky Derby winner Mystic Dan, will receive this year’s Big Sport of Turfdom Award, the award’s presenter, the Turf Publicists of America, announced Monday.
The award, which will be presented to McPeek at a luncheon during the University of Arizona Global Symposium on Racing on Dec. 10, is the TPA’s highest honor. McPeek also won the award in 2002.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Ag Bullet was listed as Hip No. 216 for the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in Kentucky on Nov. 4, two days after she finished third by a neck in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar.
Ag Bullet never left California.
“We didn’t want to sell her,” trainer Richard Baltas said.
Instead, Ag Bullet will start in her third consecutive Grade 1 race in the $300,000 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Sunday, the final day of the track’s current autumn meeting.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Between the Saturday stakes winner Skinner, and the soon-to-return stakes winner Express Train, owners Lee and Susan Searing and trainer John Shirreffs have two prominent runners for the major races of the winter for older horses at Santa Anita.
More than likely, the two will be on similar career paths toward the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 1.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - If Michelle Nevin can keep him on the track, the regally bred Full Moon Madness could be a sprinter to reckon with this winter at Aqueduct.
On Sunday, in his first start off an 11-month layoff, Full Moon Madness won a second-level allowance race by a head over the stakes winner Surveillance. Full Moon Madness, by Into Mischief out of the Grade 1-winning mare By the Moon, was making his first start since he won a first-level allowance race here on New Year’s Day.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The field for Friday’s $150,000 Fall Highweight Stakes ballooned to nine after a couple of horses who were entered in a since-canceled Laurel stakes race showed up in the entry box.
Dean Delivers and Witty were both entered in the Fall Highweight after Laurel canceled its weekend cards - including Saturday’s $100,000 Dave’s Friend - after complaints arose over Laurel’s main track. Additionally, Laurel officials made the decision not to bring the Dave’s Friend back at a later date.
