SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Bob Baffert will have a horse in the Runhappy Travers after all.
Mucho Gusto, runner-up to Maximum Security in last month’s Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, worked so well Monday morning at Del Mar that Baffert has elected to put him on a plane Tuesday bound for New York and Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers at Saratoga. Baffert had been pointing Mucho Gusto to the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing on Sept. 21.
Evangeline Downs-based trainer Justin Jeansonne is coming off a week to remember. He won the $75,000 La Senorita at Retama Park on his late father’s birthday, Aug. 14, and two days later celebrated the birth of daughter Jetta Joy with his wife, Jade.
“It’s been a fantastic week – an overwhelming and happy week,” said Jeansonne, 36.
Tizsfranderella remained undefeated in two starts in the La Senorita for 2-year-old fillies on turf. For her two-turn debut she earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 62.
Trainer Al Stall will attempt to win the Super Derby for an unprecedented fourth time next month when he saddles Rescind in the richest race at Louisiana Downs.
The Grade 3, $300,000 Super Derby is Sept. 7.
Rescind put himself in the 1 1/16-mile race when he won a first-level allowance at Louisiana Downs with a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 76 on Aug. 12. The score came following a local maiden special weight win. Both races were at two turns on turf, the grass becoming an option after desired main-track races did not fill for Rescind.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Owner William Werner’s one-two finishers in Sunday’s $103,600 Soaring Free Stakes, Mr. Hustle and Pleasecallmeback, may go their separate ways this fall, according to trainer Roger Attfield.
Mr. Hustle extended his unbeaten record to three races when scoring by 2 1/2 lengths in his turf debut in the 6 1/2-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. Attfield said the $235,000 yearling purchase, a Kentucky-bred son of Declaration of War, is headed to the Grade 1 Summer Stakes here Sept. 15. The one-mile turf event is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series Win and You’re In race.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Omaha Beach could resume training by the end of the week after his summer schedule was disrupted over the weekend by illness, trainer Richard Mandella said.
Widely considered one of the nation’s leading 3-year-olds, Omaha Beach will miss a scheduled start in the $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile at Del Mar on Sunday. Mandella said on Sunday that Omaha Beach had shown improvement over the weekend and that a blood test “was good.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Somewhat lost in all the commotion surrounding the prevailing weather conditions, breathtaking ending, and ultimate controversy over the final result of the photo finish was the fact both Varenka and Regal Glory ran their eyeballs out before dead-heating for first in Saturday’s Grade 2 Lake Placid.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Elate, the 2017 Alabama winner, worked a solid half-mile in 48.44 seconds Sunday morning over the Oklahoma training track in preparation for a start in Saturday’s Grade 1, $700,000 Personal Ensign Stakes.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Dunbar Road came out of her victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Alabama in good order, and while trainer Chad Brown said the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita is a likely year-end goal, how he gets the 3-year-old filly there is undetermined.
“We never really planned beyond the Alabama,” Brown, who trains Dunbar Road for owner Peter Brant, said Sunday morning.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The lawn jockey in the center of the paddock at Del Mar for the past year has been painted in the colors of Hronis Racing, who won last year’s Pacific Classic with Accelerate. After Saturday’s win by Higher Power, there’s no need to ask Sherwin Williams.
“We saved them money,” trainer John Sadler said Sunday morning. “They don’t need to paint it.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Concrete Rose, the leading 3-year-old turf filly in the country, will miss the remainder of the year due to a hairline fracture in her right foreleg, trainer Rusty Arnold said Sunday.
Arnold said Concrete Rose seemed to be a little off in her training, but it took three sets of X-rays before the hairline fracture was detected. Arnold said veterinarians Dr. William True Baker, of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, and Dr. Larry Bramlage, of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, both diagnosed the fracture after evaluating X-rays.
