ELMONT, N.Y. – Jose Ortiz and his brother Irad Ortiz Jr. will both be serving three-day suspensions over the next 10 days.
Jose Ortiz will miss this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after dropping an appeal of a suspension handed him for his ride on Hai Bobby in the seventh race at Saratoga on Aug. 28. Hai Bobby came over on a horse in midstretch, creating a chain reaction of bumping. Hai Bobby finished fourth and was disqualified to fifth.
ELMONT, N.Y. – After Math Wizard upset Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at odds of 31-1, trainer Shug McGaughey admitted to having a fleeting moment of regret about not running Travers winner Code of Honor in that race.
By Monday, though, McGaughey was quite content with his decision to point Code of Honor to Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park, a track where Code of Honor has run well and trained superbly over most of his career.
ELMONT, N.Y. – With Mike Smith staying in Southern California to ride leading Breeders’ Cup Classic hopeful McKinzie in the Grade 1, $300,000 Awesome Again at Santa Anita, John Velazquez has picked up the mount on Midnight Bisou for Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park.
Smith has ridden Midnight Bisou in 14 of her 17 races, including all six of her graded stakes victories this year. Velazquez rode Midnight Bisou in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff. where she finished third.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Don’t look now, but Mike Maker is at it again. The claiming maven haltered both Line Judge and Pete’s Play Call for $80,000 out of the seventh race Friday and will be looking to replicate the type of success he has enjoyed with similar high-dollar claims such as Furthest Land, Dark Cove, Da Big Hoss, and Hogy.
Owner Michael Hui, who claimed Zulu Alpha here last September for $80,000 and since has won four graded stakes with him, the last three with Maker as trainer, is one of the partners in both of the new claims.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – No Omaha Beach for the Ack Ack, and no Seeking the Soul for the Lukas Classic.
Still, the show will go on and the lights will shine bright at Churchill Downs when the final Downs After Dark card of 2019 is held Saturday night amid what is expected to be brilliant early autumn weather.
Cheryl White, the first African-American female jockey in the United States, died in her home state of Ohio on Saturday after a recent illness, according to several of her friends.
White was 65 and was living in Youngstown, Ohio. In recent years, she has worked as a patrol judge, clerk of scales and filled in as a steward at Mahoning Valley Racecourse. She had worked in recent years at Thistledown, her friends said.
CYPRESS, Calif. – All-sources handle at the 10-day Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos that concluded on Sunday declined by approximately 6.5 percent compared to 2018, according to track vice-president Jack Liebau.
The 2018 county fair meeting was run over 12 days. This year, the county fair meeting eliminated the first two Thursdays because of concern over the number of available horses. The meeting opened on Sept. 6 and had two three-day racing weeks before a final week that encompassed four days of racing.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Drayden Van Dyke walked through the Santa Anita parking lot late Sunday morning, his white long-sleeve T-shirt covered with flecks of dirt on the arms.
Getting dirty was a fun way to spend the morning for Van Dyke, who resumed exercising horses on Saturday after a three-week absence because of injury.
Van Dyke was unseated from Eight Rings in the opening furlong of the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 2 and sustained a bruised and swollen right arm. He was cleared to resume working horses last Friday and wasted no time getting back to work.
King Jack was back at his barn at Los Alamitos early Sunday afternoon following his 1 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Gallant Bob Stakes at Parx, for which he earned a gaudy 111 Beyer Speed Figure.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said he’s not sure where he will point the speedy 3-year-old next. King Jack, a son of Jimmy Creed owned by Michael Stinson, is now 3 for 4 in his career.
