BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Sistercharlie, North America’s female turf champion of 2018, will not make her seasonal debut in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland on April 13 as expected, owing to a temperature, trainer Chad Brown said Friday.
“She spiked a fever on us, so she’s going to miss the Jenny Wiley, but she’ll be fine,” Brown said. “We’ll just regroup with her. Where she’ll start her season, I’m not sure yet, but she’s recovering very well.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – The California Horse Racing Board voted on Thursday to ban jockeys from using whips to urge their mounts, the first stage of a process that will take several months and fundamentally change the way races are ridden.
The rule will limit riders to using whips “when necessary to control the horse for the safety of the horse or rider.” The current rule allowing jockeys to use the whip three times in succession before pausing to give a horse a chance to respond will be eliminated.
Hawthorne has canceled its Friday racing program in anticipation of heavy rain, according to a track news release.
Hawthorne also has called off training Friday morning, saying 1 1/2 inches of rain were forecast for the area starting Thursday night.
The release said racing was expected to resume Saturday.
Hawthorne is experiencing an acute horse shortage. After four racing days of the spring meeting, average field size on eight-race cards stood at just 5.78 runners.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Dunbar Road, a most impressive debut winner here on March 3, was supplemented to Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks, and if she runs, she could be favored in the 1 1/16-mile stakes for 3-year-old fillies.
The Gulfstream Oaks is one of six undercard stakes on the 14-race Florida Derby card.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Despite his fourth-place finish as the 6-5 choice in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth on March 2, Hidden Scroll was pegged the 5-2 morning-line favorite in a field of 11 3-year-olds drawn Wednesday for the $1 million Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. The Grade 1 Florida Derby highlights a 14-race program Saturday that includes six other stakes and will offer a mandatory payout of the Rainbow 6 pool, with a carryover of more than $3 million if the jackpot is not hit Thursday or Friday.
With three nights remaining at Turfway Park’s winter/spring meet, Cipriano Contreras and Wesley Ward are tied at the top of the trainer standings with 13 wins apiece. Contreras has two entries Thursday at Turfway and one on Saturday, while Ward has a pair of entries for Friday night.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Because of its five-horse field on a card that has several stakes with short fields, Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita has been postponed from Saturday to Sunday, racing officials said on Wednesday.
The remaining four stakes Saturday had small fields as of late Wednesday morning. The Grade 3 Santa Ana Stakes, the Grade 1 Kilroe Mile, and the Grade 2 San Carlos Stakes each had six entrants, while the Grade 1 Beholder Mile had seven entrants.
As Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., prepares to bring its winter/spring meet to a close on Saturday, track officials at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., have begun gearing up for their track’s opening next week, when Keeneland will run nine stakes over four days.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will resume racing Friday for the first time since March 3 after a tumultuous month in which the main track underwent inspection and renovation and several policy changes were enacted following 22 equine fatalities since late December that drew nationwide attention.
The implementation of some of the changes was being discussed by track officials as late as Tuesday prior to a formal review by the California Horse Racing Board at its monthly meeting Thursday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Martin Garcia will have his first mount since November in Friday’s eighth race at Santa Anita when he rides Mr Classical in a maiden claimer.
Garcia has not ridden since November at Del Mar because of a shoulder injury. He resumed exercising horses at Santa Anita last Saturday.
Mr Classical, trained by Doug O’Neill, is Garcia’s lone mount on Friday’s eight-race program.
