The Grade 1-winning turf filly Lush Lips probably won’t race again until later this summer, trainer Brendan Walsh said Monday.
Lush Lips developed into the leading North American 3-year-old grass filly of 2025 and stood poised to add the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley to her résumé on April 11. Instead, Walsh had to scratch her with what he thought would be a relatively minor issue, but the problem, while not compromising in the long term, has persisted.
Somewhere between getting rock-star treatment on television and social media, throwing out a ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium, and sending her Converse kicks, custom-made for the first Saturday in May, to be displayed at the Kentucky Derby Museum, Cherie DeVaux still has a vast stable of horses to train.
The 2-year-olds have started arriving en masse, many bound for bucolic isolation at the Pea Patch, Ellis Park, and then there’s the minor task of training Derby winner Golden Tempo toward the Belmont Stakes.
The Stephen Foster rematch June 27 between Sovereignty and his Oaklawn Handicap vanquisher White Abarrio held huge appeal on its own, and now Dubai World Cup winner Magnitude appears poised to join the fray.
Magnitude, on May 9, worked a half-mile in 51.20 seconds, the easiest of breezes but meaningful as it was the colt’s first published drill since he beat Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Forever Young in the Dubai World Cup on March 28.
Hall of Fame jockey Joel Rosario is returning to familiar surroundings in an effort to revive his career.
Rosario, a former leading rider at Del Mar, Hollywood Park and Santa Anita in the late 2000s and early 2010s, will begin riding on a full-time basis at Santa Anita on Sunday.
Rosario, 41, is booked on four mounts, including Boss Sully in the day’s main race – the $100,000 Siren Lure Stakes for turf sprinters.
“I’m ready for a change,” Rosario said in a phone interview earlier this week.
The first three months of 2026 were a quiet stretch for trainer Andy Mathis. A little too quiet.
From Dec. 28, 2025, the opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, through April 23, Mathis had one win from 31 runners, with eight second- and third-place finishers.
A three-win day at Santa Anita on April 24 and another win on April 30 has revived the season.
“Finally, things started to break the right way,” Mathis said on Thursday.
Rhetorical came out of his brilliant May 2 victory in the Grade 1 Turf Classic so well that connections tentatively plan to run him back June 6 in the $1 million Manhattan at Saratoga.
The Turf Classic marked Rhetorical’s first try over a distance as long as 1 1/8 miles, and for the first time in his nine-start career, he led. Rather than posing a challenge, the new circumstances elevated Rhetorical to a 3 1/4-length score and a career-best 107 Beyer Speed Figure.
Brad Cox did not notch his first outright Kentucky Derby win last weekend, but he still has a loaded stable and is hatching plans for his two Derby runners and a host of other high-level performers.
Cox, who won the 2021 Derby with Mandaloun after Medina Spirit was disqualified for a positive drug test, had to scratch Fulleffort from the Derby when the colt was diagnosed with a chipped ankle, leaving him with two Derby starters. Further Ado, the most tepid of favorites at 5-1, finished 13th, while Commandment, the 6-1 fourth choice, was seventh with a tough trip.
From her first workout in early March, the 2-year-old Quarter Horse filly Contentious has been a source of hype at Los Alamitos.
So far, the attention has been warranted. Unbeaten in two starts, Contentious is the fastest qualifier for Sunday’s $254,400 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity at 300 yards and is expected to be favored in a field of 10.
Trainer Vann Belvoir, who finished ninth in the standings at the recently-concluded Turf Paradise meeting in Arizona, will have a 39-horse stable in California this spring and summer.
The team arrived from Phoenix on Tuesday, three days after the end of the Turf Paradise meeting. Belvoir had 15 wins from 121 runners at Turf Paradise. Belvoir’s stable will be based at Los Alamitos.
