ARCADIA, Calif. – Led by a Memorial Day program with three Grade 1 races worth $500,000 each, Santa Anita has scheduled 34 stakes for its spring-summer meeting from April 12 to June 23.
This will be the richest Memorial Day program since Santa Anita inherited the spring-summer meeting from Hollywood Park in 2014. The $500,000 races are the Gamely Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf, the Shoemaker Mile on turf, and the Gold Cup at Santa Anita at 1 1/4 miles on the main track.
Entries will be taken Wednesday for the first three stakes of 2019 at Tampa that make up Saturday’s Skyway Festival.
Two of the stakes, the Pasco and Gasparilla, are seven-furlong races for 3-year-olds with a particular emphasis on Florida-breds. Purses for each begin at $50,000, but as much as $75,000 in additional bonuses are available to horses registered with the Florida Sire Stakes and/or the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association.
Knicks Go, the most accomplished 3-year-old on the grounds at Tampa Bay Downs, was scheduled for his first comeback breeze this weekend while continuing his training toward the Sam F. Davis Stakes next month at the Oldsmar, Fla., track.
There are just eight races carded Sunday at Fair Grounds, but the heart of the program has substance.
Race 5 is a second-level turf-sprint allowance with a $40,000 claiming option for fillies and mares, while race 6 is a first-level, two-turn dirt allowance race for 3-year-old fillies – a softer spot for young talent not quite ready for next weekend’s Silverbulletday Stakes.
Trainer Brad Cox might have the right horse for both.
Trainer Bret Calhoun has won as many as 50 races during a Fair Grounds racing season. Right now, even a couple would feel pretty good.
Calhoun, through racing of Jan. 10 at Fair Grounds, had a meet record of 52-3-7-4, which is not at all like his stable’s typical production level. “Due” may be just an empty concept, but really, Calhoun is due for a Fair Grounds hot streak.
The purse of the Grade 3 Steve Sexton Mile - which has produced the last two winners of the Metropolitan Handicap - has been increased to $300,000, Lone Star Park announced Thursday afternoon. The date for the race formerly worth $200,000 has been moved back a week to April 28.
Last year, Bee Jersey won the Steve Sexton Mile one start before capturing the Met Mile at Belmont Park. His success came after Mor Spirit pulled the same double in 2017.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The final three races of Aqueduct’s Thursday card were canceled when the jockeys refused to ride, citing danger from high winds.
According to jockey Junior Alvarado, who won three of the first five races on the eight-race card, the winds were making it nearly impossible for the riders to control their horses.
According to weather.com, the winds were out of the northwest at 23 mph, with stronger gusts.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Eduardo Jones is appealing suspensions totaling 60 days and $5,000 in fines handed him by the New York State Gaming Commission.
Jones is alleged by the commission to have falsely represented himself as the trainer of Tanya’s Gem for several races in the fall at Belmont and at Aqueduct.
One of those races was on Sept. 7, when Tanya’s Gem won a $35,000 claiming race at Belmont. Tanya’s Gem has been ordered unplaced in the order of finish in that race as well as unplaced after a second at Belmont on Oct. 8 and a fifth at Belmont on Oct. 26.
One Fair Grounds-based 3-year-old filly of note who won’t make the Silverbulletday Stakes on Jan. 19 is Serengeti Empress, but trainer Tom Amoss said Thursday he expects to have her ready for the Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Feb. 16.
Serengeti Empress won the Ellis Park Debutante by more than 13 lengths before capturing the Grade 2 Pocahontas at Churchill, her two-turn debut, by more than 19 lengths. She was a 7-2 shot in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies but failed to make the lead, as she had in the Pocahontas, and faded to finish a distant seventh.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer John Servis would appear to have his contender for the Kentucky Oaks in Jaywalk. He hopes to have a horse for the Kentucky Derby as well.
One of his Derby prospects could be Lucky Lee, who will make his next start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes on Feb. 2 at Aqueduct.
