RACE 5: H MAN (#1)

ARCADIA, Calif. – Hard Not to Love may not race again until the Grade 1 Beholder Mile at Santa Anita on March 14 after her upset win in Saturday’s Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs.

Hard Not To Love, who is by Hard Spun and out of the Vindication mare Loving Vindication, has never raced beyond seven furlongs in five career starts, but trainer John Shirreffs said longer races should suit the four-time winner.

“We want to go two turns,” he said. “Her breeding asks for it.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The fact the 2020 Pegasus World Cup events will be run Lasix-free will undoubtedly change the way some trainers bring their horses up to the races. Juan Carlos Guerrero and Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Spun to Run offer a case in point.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Roy H, the champion sprinter of 2017 and 2018, has resumed light training after missing most of 2019 with foot issues. Trainer Peter Miller said on Friday that Roy H could return to racing in the spring.

“We’re in no rush with him,” Miller said.

Roy H has not raced since winning the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes at Santa Anita last January. A 7-year-old gelding, Roy H was sent to Dubai for the Group 1 Golden Shaheen at Meydan Racecourse last March, but did not start when an abscess developed in a foot.

Jon Schuster, the general manager of Indiana Grand Racing and Casino the past 17 years, died on Christmas Day at his Shelbyville, Ind., home at age 61.

A 1976 graduate of Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, Schuster later attended the University of Arizona, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1995 and participated in the Racetrack Industry Program.

Schuster is survived by his wife of 14 years, Janie; four children; his mother, Rosemary; two siblings; and numerous other family members.

Newly Minted, a dominant allowance winner last Sunday at Aqueduct, could make her next start in the $100,000 Interborough Stakes here on Jan. 20, trainer Linda Rice said Thursday.

Newly Minted, a three-time New York-bred stakes winner in 2019, scored a 7 1/4-length victory in front-running fashion in an open-company allowance race, under a hard ride from Jose Lezcano. Newly Minted covered a mile in 1:37.53 and earned a career-best 85 Beyer Speed Figure.

“It was nice to see her get back to her brilliant self,” Rice said.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – She ain’t done dancing yet.

Come Dancing, the Grade 1-winning mare, will race as a 6-year-old in 2020, trainer Carlos Martin said this week. Following her sixth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Nov. 3 at Santa Anita, Come Dancing was retired and scheduled to be bred to Quality Road in 2020.

ARCADIA, Calif. – John Shirreffs plays the long game. He takes his time with his young horses, hoping the payoff comes later. He has laid the foundation to be a major player this winter in the 3-year-old ranks, which annually is one of the highlights of Santa Anita’s winter-spring meeting that begins Saturday.

Omaha Beach in the Runhappy Malibu, Bellafina in the La Brea, and the return of Gift Box in the San Antonio are among the many highlights of Santa Anita’s opening-day card on Saturday, for which entries were drawn Monday.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The $75,000 Tropical Park Derby may not be the richest of the six turf stakes on the 11-race program here Saturday but it is definitely the most intriguing. The 1 1/16-mile race has drawn a full and very strong field of 14 3-year-olds trying to squeeze in one final stakes opportunity against their own kind while also hoping to punch their ticket, perhaps, into the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational in January.