NEW ORLEANS – Intended Pegasus World Cup runner Tom’s d’Etat will have his final work before the race Sunday at Fair Grounds.
It’s a big day for the horse’s connections: Gayle Benson’s GMB Racing owns Tom’s d’Etat, and the Benson family also owns the New Orleans Saints, who have a National Football League playoff game Sunday afternoon.
NEW ORLEANS – The $1 million Queen’s Plate is more than five months away, on June 28 at Woodbine, but for 3-year-old filly Desert Ride’s connections it might not be too early to start thinking about that race.
Ontario-bred Desert Ride had her first trip to the post in the eighth race Thursday at Fair Grounds and, despite making some mistakes (starting with a poor break), she came away with a 1 1/4-length win. Desert Ride rallied from last under Shaun Bridgmohan and really exploded the final 1 1/2 furlongs to take a going-away victory.
NEW ORLEANS – Cornacchia got more attention in the betting but his Brad Cox-trained stablemate Owendale got the money in featured race 5 Thursday at Fair Grounds. Owendale won the mile and 70-yard allowance race for 3-year-olds by 1 1/2 lengths, probably earning a start in the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 16, Cox said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Aqueduct will not conduct live racing Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, due to a forecast that calls for frigid conditions, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday.
The forecast on weather.com for Monday calls for a high of 20 degrees, with wind chills in the single digits to near zero.
NYRA also announced that there will be no training at Aqueduct or Belmont Park on Monday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita is guaranteeing a $2 million payout in the 20-cent Rainbow pick six for eight racing days beginning on Saturday and plans to have a mandatory payout day for the pool on Feb. 2.
The Rainbow portion of the pick six is paid only if there is a single winning ticket, which has not occurred since the meeting began on Dec. 26. The carryover in the Rainbow pick six for Friday’s eight-race program is $883,200. Last Sunday, the most recent day of racing, the pick six paid $18,029 to 11 ticketholders.
Owner Peter Redekop has kicked in $100,000 to the purse of the British Columbia Derby at Hastings Racecourse, boosting the value of the race to $250,000, according to a release from Hastings.
The Grade 3 B.C. Derby, the richest race at the Vancouver racetrack, will be run for the 74th time on Sept. 7.
Redekop, a member of the B.C. Horse Racing Hall of Fame, won the B.C. Derby three consecutive years – in 2012 with Second City, 2013 with Title Contender, and 2014 with Alert Bay.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Accelerate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November and the expected favorite in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26, has had a week of limited training because of wet conditions at Santa Anita.
Trainer John Sadler said on Thursday that Accelerate has had “easy gallops on the training track” in recent days. The Santa Anita main track has been closed for training because of rain.
Sadler said Accelerate remains on schedule for the Pegasus World Cup, but the date of a final workout has not been determined.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Persistent rain through the week and the forecast for a very wet day led Santa Anita officials to cancel Thursday’s eight-race program. The decision was made early Thursday morning after a conference call among track officials.
“We’ve had almost three inches and there is a prediction of two to three more inches today,” director of racing Dan Eidson said early Thursday morning.
“That’s too much.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Yorkiepoo Princess blew out three furlongs in 38.86 seconds Wednesday morning at Aqueduct in preparation for Monday’s $100,000 Interborough Stakes.
Yorkiepoo Princess went an opening eighth in 13.71 seconds and came home in 25.15 over a deep main track. She galloped out a half-mile in 52.13 seconds.
Trainer Eddie Barker said he wasn’t looking to do a whole lot with the filly, who six days ago worked five furlongs in 1:02.40, which was the fastest of 16 works that day.
“She’s so good right now,” Barker said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mind Control, the Grade 1 Hopeful and Jerome stakes winner, returned to the work tab Tuesday, breezing a half-mile in 48.77 seconds over Belmont Park’s training track. He is working toward an expected start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 2.
“He’s thriving right now – very happy,” trainer Gregg Sacco said. “It was almost like a gallop for him.”
