Gift Box, who won the Santa Anita Handicap earlier in the year, will not make the Awesome Again on Sept. 28 at Santa Anita, and his chances of running in the Breeders’ Cup Classic Nov. 2 are “in jeopardy” owing to a splint injury, trainer John Sadler said Monday morning.
Sadler had hoped to work Gift Box before leaving for Santa Anita to try and get him on a schedule for a fall campaign.
“He popped a little splint,” Sadler said.
DEL MAR, Calif. – He had no more runners left at the meet, but trainer John Sadler was still busy wrapping up things at Del Mar on Monday morning, looking to the future with his Pacific Classic winner Higher Power, who worked a half-mile in 48.80 seconds prior to a scheduled departure for Santa Anita in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the Del Mar summer meeting, is planning to ride at several venues in North America in the next few weeks while the Southern California circuit shifts to Los Alamitos beginning Friday.
Prat will ride at Belmont Park on Saturday and Sunday and is scheduled to ride the $1 million Jockey Club Derby and $750,000 Jockey Club Oaks there. Those races are for 3-year-olds on turf on Saturday.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Dan Hendricks has disbanded his stable.
Hendricks had his final runner Sunday when Matson finished ninth in the 10th race at Del Mar.
“I’ll stop for a while,” he said earlier that day. “I’m low on horses and I don’t feel like going back to the situation at Santa Anita, so it’s a good time to stop.”
Hendricks has been based at Santa Anita for most of the last 35 years. Thirty horses were euthanized there as a result of injuries sustained in training or racing from late December to late June.
With racing canceled at Gulfstream Park on Sunday and Monday due to Hurricane Dorian, racing fans in the Miami area will be happy to be back at the track Thursday when they will have a solid nine-race card to work with.
Not only is the feature an intriguing race, a first-level allowance race for Florida-bred fillies and mares headed by blowout winners R Prerogative and J P’s Delight, there is a $1,042,563 carryover in the Rainbow 6. It is a tough sequence that includes a couple of wide-open maiden races.
FRANKLIN, Ky. – With assistant David Carroll rooting them home, two stakes winners on the opening-day card made trainer Mark Casse the biggest winner to start the Runhappy meet. Hanalei Moon captured the $250,000 One Dreamer, and Peace Achieved capped the day in the $500,000 Gainesway Farm Juvenile, with both returning $12 win mutuels.
“It was a great day for us,” said Carroll, whose vocal encouragement during any given stretch run is among the strongest in the business. “We’re very proud of the horses and the staff and very happy for the owners.”
FRANKLIN, Ky. – In one weekend, Brad Cox makes more news than most Thoroughbred racing stables generate in an entire year.
From coast to coast, Cox had a raucously eventful Labor Day weekend. He was on hand Saturday for opening day of the Runhappy meet at Kentucky Downs, saddling two winners – including a romp by Jezebel’s Kitten in the $494,000 Juvenile Fillies – while also being disqualified from a third winner when Lady Jenneviere was deemed to have caused interference in deep stretch of a maiden race.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Secret Spice, the winner of the Grade 1 Beholder Mile in March and second in two subsequent Grade 1 races, is progressing toward her autumn debut in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 29.
Sunday at Del Mar, Secret Spice worked five furlongs in 1:01.80, her third workout since she finished second by a head to Ollie’s Candy as the 6-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on July 28.
Trainer Richard Baltas timed Secret Spice in a minute.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Global Access spent the winter and spring as a workmate for his more heralded stablemate Win Win Win.
Global Access emerged from the shadow of his fellow 3-year-old with a neck victory in Saturday’s Grade 3 Saranac Stakes at Saratoga, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 88. It was his second graded win of the year. He also won the Grade 3 Marine Stakes at Woodbine in May.
“I was hard on him this spring, he was Win Win Win’s workmate, he’s been at it that long,” trainer Michael Trombetta said. “He’s won two graded races, he’s all right by us.”
A son of American Pharoah winning the American Pharoah? That will be the hope of trainer George Papaprodromou on Sept. 27 when American Threorem, his American Pharoah colt, goes in the Grade 1 American Pharoah at Santa Anita.
American Theorem won his debut sprinting on Saturday at Del Mar with a Beyer Speed Figure of 83. He galloped out powerfully afterward. The American Pharoah is a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile five weeks later. Both are at 1 1/16 miles, and both are at Santa Anita.
