David Pate, a longtime trainer in Kentucky and Ohio, died Saturday at Cincinnati’s University Hospital after complications from a brain aneurism. He was 70.
A former leading trainer at River Downs, Pate won 565 races over his career, with purses totaling nearly $5.7 million. With a modest stable of mostly blue-collar runners, his horses won eight stakes, highlighted by Deputy G winning the Grade 3 Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs in 2005.
Leading Quarter Horse trainer Paul Jones said on Tuesday that he plans to appeal a 60-day suspension for a medication violation found in one of his runners at Ruidoso Downs in 2011.
Jones, the nation’s leading Quarter Horse trainer for the last 11 years, was cited for a zilpaterol positive found in Jess Hi Maintenance, the winner of a futurity trial on July 8, 2011. Zilpaterol, a feed supplement that promotes muscle gain in livestock, is a class 3 drug.
The New Mexico Racing Commission has approved 2014 dates for the state’s tracks. All of the meets will conduct races for both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses.
Sunland Park, home of the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby, was granted a 76-date season. The track will open Dec. 6, 2013, and run through April 15, 2014.
SunRay Park was allotted a 39-date season, from April 18-June 22.
Ruidoso Downs, home of the Grade 1 All American Futurity for Quarter Horses, will race 60 dates next year, from May 23 through Sept. 1.
One of the largest stables in the Mid-South region of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas will be dormant for the next two weeks. On Sunday, trainer Allen Milligan will begin serving a 15-day suspension for a medication infraction and said during that time he would not transfer horses to other parties in an agreement with his owners. Milligan on Saturday was expected to win the training title at Lone Star Park near Dallas.
Palace Malice broke from the gate on the lead in the Kentucky Derby. He raced head and head with Goldencents down the long frontstretch through an opening quarter-mile in 22.57 seconds and, leaving Goldencents behind, roared through a half-mile in 45.33, one of the fastest Derby splits ever. Even as Palace Malice was leading the Derby, all was lost.
“Around the first turn, that was the ‘oh no’ moment,” said jockey Mike Smith, riding Palace Malice in a race for the first time. “That was when I knew this wasn’t going to work out very well.”
Shaun Bridgmohan, who won the riding title at the recently ended Churchill Downs spring meet, spent the first 13 years of his life in his native Jamaica before moving with his family to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
He worked at Calder as a stablehand before starting his riding career in 1997. He soon moved to New York, where he earned the 1998 Eclipse Award for top apprentice, before moving to Louisville, Ky., in 2005.
Something extraordinary happened at Belmont Park on June 28, 1913, something no modern-day racing fan could hope to witness in a dozen lifetimes. That afternoon, a future Hall of Fame trainer hoisted a future Hall of Fame jockey and an armload of lead onto the back of a future Hall of Fame Thoroughbred, then sent them to post with history dead in their sights.
Corona Chick, the Quarter Horse filly who won three championship titles in 1991 and 1992 and later became a prolific broodmare, died of natural causes on June 26, owner Julianna Hawn Holt announced earlier this week.
Corona Chick was 24. She died at Holt’s ranch in Blanco, Texas.
A winner of 15 of 18 starts and $591,326 for owner and breeder Bob Etchandy and trainer Frank Monteleone, Corona Chick was the champion 2-year-old filly and overall champion 2-year-old of 1991, and the champion 3-year-old filly of 1992.
Kentucky Derby winner Orb on Wednesday took his first serious step toward the second half of his 3-year-old campaign by working three furlongs in 36 seconds over the dirt surface at the Fair Hill training center in Maryland.
Trainer Shug McGaughey, who was not at Fair Hill for the work – Orb’s first since his third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes – said all reports were good from exercise rider Jennifer Patterson, who did work the colt.
