ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine’s Thoroughbred card on Sunday was canceled after the first race due to high winds. The feature on Sunday’s 11-race card, the Grade 2 Autumn Stakes, was rescheduled for Friday and will not be redrawn.
Live racing resumes Wednesday with a nine-race card beginning at 6:45 p.m. Eastern.
Favorites were the only thing hotter than Javier Castellano at Aqueduct on Saturday, as post-time choices swept the first seven races, and Castellano won with six of seven mounts.
Castellano was aboard five of the winning favorites, including a $14.60 early double of Coup de Grace ($3) and Jeter ($6.50), and a $23.20 pick 3 of Becky’s Kitten ($6.60), One Red Cat ($2.90), and Watsdachances ($4.20) in races 4, 5, and 6.
After finishing sixth aboard Queen Mercury in race 7, Castellano won the ninth and final race with North Star Boy ($15) to complete a 6-for-7 afternoon.
Thanks to mostly ideal autumn weather that allowed for an abundance of turf racing, and the institution of the popular 50-cent Pick 5, business was brisk at Belmont Park’s 2013 fall meet, as five-year highs were set in all-sources and on-track handle, according to figures released Saturday by the New York Racing Association.
All-sources handle, including on-track wagering and simulcast outlets nationwide, was $326,878,686, the highest figure of the past five years. It was an increase of 9.8 percent from $297,670,005 last year, and 24.3 percent from $263,037,788 in 2011.
Two-time Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Groupie Doll and her trainer and co-breeder William "Buff" Bradley will have the opportunity to complete a bit of unfinished business when the recently sold mare contests the Grade 1 Cigar Mile on Nov. 30 at Aqueduct.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Churchill Downs officials announced late Friday that a future wager on the 2014 Kentucky Derby will be offered at the end of November, by far the earliest such parimutuel futures have been offered since first being made available in 1999.
The pool will be open for four days, from Wednesday, Nov. 27, through Saturday, Nov. 30, closing at post time of either the Remsen at Aqueduct or the Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill, whichever is run first.
CHICAGO -- The Illinois state legislature concluded its three-day fall-veto session Thursday without taking up legislation to extend the state’s account-wagering law and provide funding for the Illinois Racing Board to administer a full season of racing in 2014.
On any given day at any given racetrack, a rank-and-file field emerges from the gates that will be forgotten as soon as the last horse crosses the finish line, as disposable as a program page flipped to the next race.
The outcome of the second race at Great Lakes Downs on June 21, 2004, was of little consequence to most of the world. But if any other result had come about, there would be a different arrangement of ink on this page.
Tony McCoy, the champion steeplechase jockey in Britain 18 times, became the first rider in that sport to win 4,000 races with a victory in a novice hurdle at Towcester, England, on Thursday.
McCoy began Thursday needing one win for the milestone. After finishing fifth with his first mount of the day, McCoy reached 4,000 when Mountain Tunes, the 6-4 favorite, won a novices’ hurdle over 2 5/8 miles.
Kjell Qvale, a Norwegian-born automotive executive who operated a prominent racing stable in Northern California for more than 40 years, died Saturday in San Francisco.
Qvale, who was born in Norway and moved to the United States in 1929, was 94. A World War II veteran, Qvale opened the first Jaguar dealership in California and imported other European automotive brands such as MG, Austin, and Rolls Royce. He also was influential in the development of the San Francisco Auto Show.
