HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The fact Mayberry Deputy rallied to win a very competitive one-mile maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds here last Saturday came as a surprise to many, especially the bettors who sent him postward at odds of 17-1 in his third career start. The fact he won at all was probably even a bigger surprise to those who knew what Mayberry Deputy had gone through in the five days leading up to that start.
It’s hard to imagine an undefeated Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner who will win an Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly being overshadowed by a stablemate in the same division. And maybe that won’t wind up being the case. But in the Fair Grounds stable of Brad Cox, exactly that dynamic seems plausible as the calendar rolls over to 2020.
It will be a domestic campaign for the leading North American 7-year-old racehorse of 2020, Tom’s d’Etat.
No Saudi Cup, no Dubai World Cup, and not even a Pegasus World Cup Invitational for Tom’s d’Etat, who could have the first start of his 7-year-old season either in the New Orleans Handicap at Fair Grounds in March or the Ben Ali at Keeneland in April, trainer Al Stall said Monday.
HALLANDALE, Fla. – One of the premier 3-year-olds stabled in the area this winter is Tiz the Law, winner of the Grade 1 Champagne in just his second start, who ended his 2-year-old campaign finishing a troubled third as the odds-on favorite over a sloppy track in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs.
Tiz the Law turned in his first work since the Kentucky Jockey Club on Monday at Palm Meadows, breezing an easy half-mile in 50.40 seconds with exercise rider Heather Smullen aboard, the final quarter in 24, according to DRF clocker Donald Harris.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The start of the new year means the start of a new 3-year-old season, and where better to take those first steps on the road to the Kentucky Derby than Gulfstream Park? The series of prep races, which is second to none each season, begins Saturday with the $100,000 Mucho Macho Man.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Mike Smith will begin his fifth decade of riding when he climbs aboard Forever Poe in Wednesday’s first race at Santa Anita.
“That’s crazy,” he said Sunday morning when reminded of one statistical aspect of his longevity.
What is equally crazy is how well Smith is riding at 54.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Gary Contessa had been wavering whether to enter Laddie Liam in Wednesday’s $150,000 Jerome Stakes against the impressive Nashua Stakes winner Independence Hall. Following Laddie Liam’s sharp half-mile workout Saturday morning in 48.34 seconds, Contessa was planning to enter.
But Laddie Liam came out of the work with a foot injury that kept him out of the entry box and will sideline him for a short period. Contessa said Laddie Liam “shed a frog,” on his left front foot. The frog acts like a shock absorber when a horse’s foot hits the ground.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – As Mike Trombetta begins the road to the 2020 Kentucky Derby with Independence Hall in Wednesday’s $150,000 Jerome Stakes, his 2019 Kentucky Derby runner, Win Win Win, has resumed training at Live Oak Stud in Ocala, Fla.
“He’s at the farm in Ocala, which is the best place for him to be right now,” Trombetta said of the son of Hat Trick.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Linda Rice has a history of finding stakes horses at the claim box. Could Wicked Trick be the next one?
Rice took Wicked Trick – a horse with one eye – for $16,000 in August. Wicked Trick has won all three of his starts for Rice – and five in a row overall – including a second-level allowance victory last Saturday in which he made up six lengths in the final furlong to win by three-quarters of a length. He earned a career-best 92 Beyer Speed Figure.
Now, Wicked Trick could be heading to the Grade 3, $150,000 Toboggan Stakes here Jan. 18, Rice said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Gary Sherlock, who guided the Thoroughbred fillies Intangaroo and Lost Bus to graded stakes wins in recent years and started Uncle Lino in the 2016 Preakness Stakes, died on Sunday of cancer, according to his friends and officials at Santa Anita.
Sherlock was 73.
A native of San Francisco, Sherlock had a lifelong background in racing. His father, William, was a jockey, and his mother, Mary, was a racing official in Northern California.
