SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mitole, a winner of seven consecutive races, including the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on June 8, has been confirmed for the Grade 1, $350,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap at Saratoga on July 27, trainer Steve Asmussen said Thursday.
“I love how he’s doing. I feel the Vanderbilt is a good spot for him,” Asmussen said.
Trainer Peter Miller had a career-best summer at Del Mar in 2018, winning the training title with 31 victories. He is not anticipating an encore at this summer’s meeting, which runs from Wednesday through Sept. 2.
Miller, 52, said on Thursday that he will have approximately 60 horses at Del Mar and the nearby San Luis Rey Downs training center and a division in Kentucky this summer.
Dan Ward, longtime assistant to beleaguered Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, is expected to operate a stable in his name at the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins on Wednesday.
Hollendorfer was informed earlier this week by Del Mar officials that he would not be allowed to race there this summer. The decision came three weeks after Santa Anita told Hollendorfer to vacate his stalls after a fourth horse in his care at that track suffered a fatal injury in training or racing since late December.
The undefeated stakes winner Bulletproof One was sold Wednesday to Gary and Cecil Barber and will be heading to trainer Peter Miller's Southern California barn on Friday.
Owner-breeder Ellen Jackson said she sold the 2-year-old filly because, “I think there will be more opportunities for her in Southern California.”
Jackson did not reveal the sale price other than to say it was for six figures. She said there will also be a bonus payment if the filly wins a graded stakes.
To accommodate expected construction of a hockey arena on the grounds of Belmont Park, the final 14 race days of the 37-day Belmont fall meet will be conducted at Aqueduct, the New York Racing Association announced Wednesday.
Racing at Belmont will run Sept. 6 through Oct. 6 and allow for all of the usual Grade 1 stakes, such as the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, to be run there. Racing will move to Aqueduct on Oct. 11 and what will be considered the Belmont fall meet will go through Oct. 27.
The stakes winners Ohio and Paved and the stakes-placed Vibrance will be among trainer Michael McCarthy’s scheduled runners at Del Mar this summer, while the stakes winner Liam the Charmer is being given a rest.
Liam the Charmer “is getting a little break,” McCarthy said.
Liam the Charmer, who won the Grade 2 John Henry Turf Championship last September and was later 12th in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs, was sixth in an allowance race with an $80,000 claiming option June 14 at Santa Anita.
On opening day at Del Mar and the second Sunday of the meet, Nolde and Paradise Woods will give trainer John Shirreffs leading contenders in two stakes in the early days of the track’s summer meeting.
Nolde, unbeaten in two starts on turf, will make his stakes debut in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf on the opening-day program July 17. Owned by Jerry Moss, Nolde worked five furlongs in 1:02 at Santa Anita on Wednesday.
Talk Veuve to Me, the winner of the 2018 Indiana Oaks, has been disqualified from an April 11 allowance victory at Keeneland after testing positive for aminocaproic acid, a prohibited race-day adjunct bleeder medication, Kentucky stewards announced Sunday. Her trainer, Rodolphe Brisset, was fined $500, and the purse was redistributed, resulting in Treble, the initial runner-up, now declared the winner.
CYPRESS, Calif. – The Grade 3 Los Alamitos Derby on Saturday is likely to have four entrants, its smallest field in six years, with a field consisting of three horses trained by Bob Baffert and one by Hector Palma.
Baffert said Wednesday that he entered Game Winner, Kingly, and Mucho Gusto but may run Mucho Gusto in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational on July 20 at Monmouth Park.
“I put him in there for insurance in case something would happen or I change my mind for the Haskell,” he said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Monomoy Girl, last year’s champion 3-year-old filly who has spent the past few months at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Ky., after a mild case of colic in the spring, is mere days away from a return to the racetrack. Trainer Brad Cox said she was likely to rejoin his Churchill Downs barn on Friday or Saturday with a goal of training toward the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita on Nov. 2.
