DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Norberto Arroyo Jr. received a 10-day suspension from the Del Mar stewards on Saturday for causing interference in Friday’s $100,351 Graduation Stakes that led to the disqualification of his mount from first to third, his third suspension in a little more than two weeks.
Michael Wrona will replace Ed Burgart as the year-round announcer at Los Alamitos beginning in December, the track announced Friday.
Wrona, 53, will begin calling races at Los Alamitos during the track’s two-week daytime Thoroughbred meeting that begins Dec. 5 and will start calling the night-time Quarter Horse and lower-level Thoroughbred meeting on Dec. 27.
The Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred meeting operates year-round on a Friday-through-Sunday basis.
Burgart is retiring as track announcer Dec. 15, having held the position since the early 1980s.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – With an eye toward stakes on the Aug. 24 Travers Day card, trainer Dale Romans put a trio of horses through workouts Friday morning at Saratoga.
Everfast, the Preakness runner-up who is pointing to the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers, worked a half-mile in 48.55 seconds. He went his opening quarter in 24.16 and galloped out five furlongs in 1:02.62. He is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Haskell Invitational on July 20 at Monmouth Park.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Jeremiah Englehart seems flush with 2-year-olds, particularly fillies.
Already at this meet, he has won maiden races with the fillies Risky Mischief and Sweet Kisses. The juvenile filly My Italian Rabbi, a maiden winner at Belmont, won the Stillwater Stakes here. For good measure, the colt Cleon Jones won his maiden here July 28.
In Sunday’s first race at Saratoga, Englehart will send out another highly-regarded runner in Daphne Moon, a daughter of Cairo Prince.
DEL MAR, Calif. – A day after he was removed from his mounts by the board of stewards, jockey Norberto Arroyo Jr. received a court order from a San Diego Superior Court judge on Friday allowing him to resume riding at Del Mar until recent drug tests can be analyzed by a California Horse Racing Board-sanctioned lab.
Hit the Beach won’t mind the move back to a sprint and some class relief when he runs in a first-level allowance race that has a $50,000 claiming option Sunday at Emerald Downs. The six-furlong dash for 3-years-olds and up drew seven horses and appears to be a wide-open event.
CHICAGO – There will be no spring Thoroughbred race meet in Chicago in 2020 as the Illinois racing circuit continues to sort out the ramifications of recently passed expanded gambling legislation that will permit racetracks to operate casinos.
Applications for 2020 racing dates were due to be filed with the Illinois Racing Board by Wednesday and notably absent from this year’s application was a spring Thoroughbred meeting at Hawthorne. Track president Tim Carey said Hawthorne didn’t apply for spring dates because it expects to be constructing a casino in part of its grandstand.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Beginning Wednesday at Saratoga, the New York Racing Association will offer the Empire 6, a jackpot-style wager modeled after the Rainbow 6 that has become a popular bet at other tracks such as Gulfstream Park.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin hopes A Thread of Blue’s speed might serve him better going longer, which is why he entered him in Sunday’s $1 million Saratoga Derby at 1 3/16 miles.
A Thread of Blue has yet to run farther than 1 1/16 miles, something he accomplished successfully in the Grade 3 Palm Beach Stakes at Gulfstream in March. Since then he was beaten three-quarters of a length in the Grade 2 American Turf at 1 1/16 miles and finished fourth in the Grade 2 Penn Mile when either on or near the early lead.
In April, Mr. Money wasn’t even the best 3-year-old in trainer Bret Calhoun’s barn, but come August he has emerged as the Midwest’s leading sophomore and is a deserving short-priced favorite Saturday in the Grade 3, $500,000 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park.
