ARCADIA, Calif. – California-based Stronghold will shorten to a mile and face older in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 2 at Del Mar, trainer Phil D’Amato said Sunday at Santa Anita, a day after Stronghold finished second in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing.
“If he comes out of it well, we’re going to run him in the Dirt Mile,” D’Amato said. “It’s a race where they’re not going to go (1:13.80) and I think a mile, at this point in time, will hit him right between the eyes.”
The way trainer Kenny McPeek sees it, Thorpedo Anna should be Horse of the Year if she wins the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar on Nov. 2.
“I think if she wins the next one you got to make her Horse of the Year,” McPeek said Sunday morning. “I don’t know how anybody would have much argument with that. We’ll see.”
E J Won the Cup leads a handful of Southern California invaders for the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby that will be run Sunday, Sept. 29, at Remington Park.
The 1 1/8-mile race drew a field of eight, with Indispensable and Canada Gate also coming in from Santa Anita.
The Oklahoma Derby anchors a card of eight stakes worth a total of $1 million. There is a special first post of 3 p.m. Central. The forecast calls for a sunny afternoon in the high 80s and a low of 58 degrees.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Ten furlongs was too far for Dr. Venkman last out: he finished fourth as the even-money favorite in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar. The question now is if six furlongs at Santa Anita is too short.
Dr. Venkman will shorten in distance and return to one turn for the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Sunday, Sept. 28, a six-furlong race trainer Mark Glatt hopes can move him toward the Breeders’ Cup.
Ron Paolucci, a horse owner whose Loooch Racing Stables won hundreds of races in the 2010s, was sentenced on Monday to 52 months in prison and ordered to pay $38.9 million in restitution on tax fraud charges, according to the U.S. attorney in Northern Texas, which prosecuted the case.
Bill Knauf, the vice president of business development at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, has been named the president and general manager of the non-profit company that will run racing in Maryland for the foreseeable future.
Knauf, who has 27 years of experience in the racing industry, was selected to the positions by the board of the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, a state commission that was set up to implement the provisions of legislation passed earlier this year that will result in the consolidation of racing at a rebuilt Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Stan Bowker, a longtime steward and racing executive who was instrumental in the opening of several racetracks, died on Sept. 10 in Clearwater, Fla., after a long illness, according to family members. Bowker was 81.
Bowker, who retired in 2021 after five decades in the racing industry, played roles in the establishment of new racetracks in Iowa and Virginia, and he was also a contributor to the opening and reopening of Canterbury Park in Minnesota. In all three cases, he also served in executive roles at the tracks.
September has been a productive month in stakes for California trainer Jeff Mullins with runners on the upswing.
On Sept. 8, Artislas won his stakes debut in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf at a mile on closing day of the track’s summer meeting. On Saturday, Man O Rose won his stakes debut by eight lengths in the E.B. Johnston Stakes for California-bred milers at Los Alamitos.
Both could start at the Santa Anita autumn meeting.
Johnny Podres must earn his way into the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2.
A 7-year-old, Johnny Podres is scheduled to start in the richest running of the Grade 2 Eddie D Stakes at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita on Sept. 28.
The value of the race has been enhanced from $200,000 in 2023 to $750,000 this year, one of three stakes with significantly higher purses on Sept. 28 through a promotion by the track’s parent company, 1/ST Racing.
Maria Borell, the one-time trainer of 2015 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Runhappy whose career was derailed by animal-cruelty charges filed in Kentucky in 2016, has been issued a trainer’s license in California, according to Borell and state records.
Borell said Friday that that she plans to train horses in California for several clients. Borell has lived in Kentucky since 2022, when she returned to the state to deal with the charges. The charges were dropped last year in a deal with local prosecutors. She has maintained her innocence in the matter since she was first charged.
