Mr Money Bags wrapped up his 3-year-old season Wednesday by winning the biggest race of his career in the $250,000 Zia Park Derby. He returned to the North Texas farm of trainer Mike Neatherlin on Thanksgiving and on Tuesday will head to his winter base of Sam Houston Race Park.
“It was a pretty good year,” Neatherlin said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mother Nature has forced the New York Racing Association to reschedule four turf stakes.
Strong winds forced NYRA to cancel Aqueduct’s Thanksgiving Day card,, which included the Central Park Stakes for 2-year-olds and the Winter Memories for fillies and mares. The Central Park is rescheduled for Friday while the Winter Memories is now slated for Saturday.
Sunday’s card was to include the Tepin Stakes for 2-year-old fillies and the Autumn Days for female sprinters, but with rain in the forecast NYRA officials opted not to card those races.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Maedean, the 5 1/4-length winner of the Tempted at Aqueduct on Nov. 1, worked four furlongs in 48.75 seconds Friday morning over the Belmont Park training track in preparation for a start in next Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Demoiselle Stakes at Aqueduct.
Maedean started about two lengths behind the 3-year-old maiden Up and Onward and finished about a half-length in front at the wire. It was her second breeze since the Tempted.
“Excellent, couldn’t have gone any better,” trainer Mark Hennig said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Independence Hall will not run in next Saturday’s Grade 2 Remsen Stakes, but he will likely make his next start at Aqueduct.
Independence Hall, the 12 1/4-length winner of the Grade 3 Nashua here on Nov. 3, is being pointed to the $150,000 Jerome Stakes here on New Year’s Day, trainer Mike Trombetta said Friday. The Jerome is a logical spot in that it is run at the same one-mile distance and over the track at which Independence Hall won the Nashua. The Jerome also offers 17 qualifying points (10-4-2-1) to its top four finishers to the May 2 Kentucky Derby.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sunday’s $47,000 allowance feature is carded at 1 1/8 miles on the turf and drew a field of eight led by Scholar Athlete, who is eligible for the race by virtue of the $35,000 optional-claiming conditions. He’s one of two horses in the field who’ll run for that tag along with Basha.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Art G Is Back, who has maintained good form throughout his 3-year-old campaign, returned to the work tab here Friday, breezing for the first time since his second-place finish in the Sunshine Millions Classic Preview three weeks earlier at Gulfstream Park West.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Thanksgiving Day at Churchill hardly could have gone any better for Tyler Gaffalione. The 25-year-old jockey swept the co-features, the Grade 2 Falls City and Grade 3 Cardinal, further punctuating what already has been a breakthrough season while building momentum for his return to his Florida home.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen is among the trainers who have taken stalls at Turfway for the upcoming meet, perhaps the best illustration of the impact that new Churchill Downs Inc. ownership is already making 95 miles up Interstate 71.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The last time Churchill Downs conducted racing in December, Joe Hirsch was 10 months old and Herbert Hoover was the president-elect.
It was on Saturday, Dec. 1, 1928, that Churchill closed a seven-day meet begun the previous Saturday, according to track archives. Ninety-one years later, they’ll finally run a December card again when closing the fall meet with 12 Sunday races.
There were eight new confirmed cases of equine herpesvirus at Remington Park in the latest round of Oklahoma Department of Agriculture tests returned Wednesday, but all of the cases were asymptomatic and the horses have been placed in a special isolation barn on the backstretch, according to Matt Vance, Remington’s vice president of racing operations.
Vance said the two horses who returned positive tests Nov. 21 tested negative for EHV-1 on Wednesday. He also said no horses in the first of the two barns quarantined since the initial case Nov. 14 tested positive Wednesday.
