ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita’s parent company spent buckets of money on Saturday’s program to lure a younger audience to the track for a big day of racing.
Turns out an older dude was one of the stars of the show.
Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, 59, won two major stakes – the Grade 2, $750,000 Eddie D. Stakes on the hillside turf course on First Peace, and the Grade 1, $1 million California Crown aboard Subsanador.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita had its largest ontrack crowd since April, and second highest of the year, when 21,812 attended Saturday’s California Crown program.
The day featured enhanced purses for three major stakes, financed by the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing, as well as several musical acts and food promotions.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Jockey Javier Castellano will not return to race-riding this week as originally planned, his agent, P.J. Campo, said Sunday.
Castellano, attempting to come back from a fractured hand suffered in late August, was given clearance to return to riding but, after breezing horses Saturday morning at Belmont Park, Castellano did not feel 100 percent and will not ride Donegal Momentum in Thursday’s $135,000 Gio Ponti Stakes at Aqueduct. He did not accept mounts for Friday at Aqueduct or for Saturday at Keeneland as was planned.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Flying Connection was scratched from the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita after track veterinarians reviewed a recent PET scan of the 4-year-old filly and would not allow her to start.
A multiple stakes winner listed as second choice in the Zenyatta, Flying Connection’s 7 for 17 career might be over. Frustrated trainer Todd Fincher disagreed with the veterinary evaluation.
“She jogged great (Sunday) morning and the HISA vet passed her,” Fincher said. “She’s sound. I know her very well.”
Due to the rains that forced turf racing to be mostly curtailed at Aqueduct this weekend, Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Miss Grillo Stakes has been postponed and will now be run on Oct. 6, the New York Racing Association announced Sunday.
The Miss Grillo, a “Win and You’re In" race for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, will be open to all original nominees and potential supplementals and will be re-drawn on Wednesday.
It was bingo for Bango on a wet Friday at Churchill Downs, as he took sole possession of the record as the winningest horse at the Louisville, Ky., track with a 2 1/4-length win in an allowance/optional-claiming race.
The Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit has lifted a provisional suspension of trainer Jorge Duarte Jr. that was based on a positive for methamphetamine in a horse he trains for Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables, according to the trainer and public documents.
HIWU lifted the suspension after Duarte provided the agency with “relevant and meaningful information regarding the likely source of unintentional transfer or contamination,” according to a notice sent by HIWU to the trainer. Duarte provided the notice to Daily Racing Form.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- War Like Goddess will attempt to win a third consecutive Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on Saturday at Aqueduct.
After initially planning to train the 7-year-old mare up to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 2, Mott said Sunday that he plans to run her in the 1 1/2-mile turf race against six males.
“They had six and quite a bit of speed in there,” Mott said. “I thought, since we enter so far out, let’s make sure she’s doing well and feeling good.”
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said he will evaluate the potential competition before deciding whether to run Pennsylvania Derby winner Seize the Grey in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic or the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. Both races are scheduled for Nov. 2 at Del Mar.
Lukas said Sunday he is not inclined to pre-enter Seize the Grey in both races. Pre-entries for the Breeders’ Cup are due on Oct. 21 and will be announced two days later.
“I think I’ll make up my mind before then,” Lukas said Sunday as he drove back to Louisville, Ky., from Pennsylvania.
