SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Mott waited out the weekend heat and beat the late Monday morning rain by working many of his stakes-bound horses, including Tacitus and Channel Maker, early Monday over the Oklahoma training track in Saratoga.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jeff Mullins had a strong opening week at Del Mar, with a pair of wins and a second in just four starts. He has two runners on Thursday’s card, both 4-year-old first-time starters whom the trainer expects to run well.
First up is the Elusive Warning gelding Satanta, who goes six furlongs against California-bred maidens in race 1.
“Acts like a solid horse,” Mullins said. “Everybody who gets on him loves him.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Pure Xena looked like a major player for the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante the final weekend of the meet the way she dominated a maiden race for 2-year-old fillies Saturday, winning by 11 1/4 lengths in her debut.
Pure Xena’s name was inspired by her sire, Warrior’s Reward. Owner Samantha Siegel, on the advice of trainer Brian Koriner, purchased her at auction in Ocala, Fla., in April for $370,000.
DEL MAR, Calif. – On July 24, 2015, Terrys Tom Cat made his first start at Del Mar, scoring a 10-1 upset in an optional claimer in which he was entered for a $40,000 claiming price.
He came back in the summer of 2016 and won again. He came back in the summer of 2017 and won again. And in the summer of 2018 . . . oh, you probably can guess.
Now age 8 and a veteran of 52 starts, Terrys Tom Cat will try to win a race at Del Mar for the fifth straight summer when he competes Thursday in race 2, a $32,000 claiming race at 1 1/16 miles on turf.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – After a pair of impressive victories on Tapeta, Mr. Hustle will make his next start on the turf, as trainer Roger Attfield will point the 2-year-old son of Declaration of War to the $100,000 Soaring Free Stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs on Aug. 18.
Should all go well in the Soaring Free, Attfield said he would then point Mr. Hustle to the Grade 1, $250,000 Summer Stakes on turf Sept. 15. Attfield is confident that Mr. Hustle will be able to handle the surface switch.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Catalina Cruiser has yet to race beyond 1 1/16 miles, but he will be strongly considered for the meet’s premier race, the 1 1/4-mile Pacific Classic on Aug. 17, following his victory on Saturday in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap, trainer John Sadler said.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Leading Score, a half-brother to two-time champion Indian Blessing, makes his first start since November 2017 in a one-mile second-level allowance on Wednesday, race 4 on the card.
Leading Score has won twice in six starts, including a one-mile first-level allowance at Los Alamitos in September 2017. He went to the sidelines after finishing sixth in the Damascus at Santa Anita in his next start. Trainer Bob Baffert said Leading Score was off owing to a tibia injury.
“He’s doing well, but he might need a race,” said Baffert.
When owner Bill Heiligbrodt attended an auction of 2-year-olds in training in Florida back in April 2017, there was one thing he knew for certain about a bay colt by Eskendereya.
“I wasn’t leaving there without him,” he said.
Heiligbrodt’s wife, Corinne, would name the colt Mitole. It was a nod to the Karankawa Indians who once populated the Texas Gulf Coast region where both she and her husband were raised, and it fit on pedigree, as the colt was out of the Indian Charlie mare Indian Miss.
