OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The New York Racing Association will offer 52 stakes worth $7.37 million at Aqueduct in the first third of 2019, according to the schedule it released Friday.
Aside from a few changes to the New York Claiming Championship Day on March 30 and the addition of the $100,000 Bernardini Stakes, the stakes program virtually mirrors that of 2018. The Bernardini, at 1 5/16 miles, will be run March 2.
The last thing any trainer wants to see is his horse being vanned back to the barn after a race. But for Henry Collazo, the free ride Field Trip received following his second-place finish in a conditioned-claiming dash here last Dec. 15 turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Field Trip raced under a $30,000 claiming tag that day, and there was a slip in the claim box with his name on it. But under a rule invoked at Gulfstream Park just 13 days earlier, the claim was voided as a result of Field Trip being vanned off.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Act 1 for Greyvitos included a pair of stakes victories last year as a 2-year-old. Act 2 included a Hail Mary attempt to make the Kentucky Derby following a four-month layoff.
Act 3 begins on Sunday at Del Mar, when the talented 3-year-old colt returns from a layoff of nearly seven months in a second-level allowance that is designed to have him at his best for the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes going seven furlongs on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.
Zia Park will run five consecutive stakes for Quarter Horses on Sunday, and those races are worth a total of $595,000.
The main event is the Grade 1, $200,000 Zia Park Championship, led by Major Bites, a winner of four stakes in five starts this year, with his lone loss a runner-up finish to reigning world champion Jessies First Down.
The other Grade 1 on the card is the $150,000 Southwest Juvenile Championship, which matches Eagle Coast, winner of the Hobbs America Futurity at Zia, against Tyson Gay, who is 4 for 4.
Nanoosh, who won the $250,000 Zia Park Derby on Nov. 21, is getting a breather, said trainer Robertino Diodoro. Nanoosh won for the third straight race and earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 94 in the Zia Derby, his stakes debut.
“We’re going to give him a little break and head to Oaklawn,” said Diodoro. “We’ll just take it one step at a time right now. He came out of the race really well.”
Diodoro said Nanoosh shipped back to Turf Paradise following the Zia Derby and will head to Oaklawn the third week of December. The meet opens Jan. 25.
A step up in class is on the horizon for Alliford Bay after she won her fifth consecutive race – all stakes – in the $100,000 Zia Park Distaff on Nov. 21.
The win came following victories at Hastings, Emerald Downs, and the California State Fair in Sacramento.
“We’re certainly looking for a graded sprint stakes for her,” said Blaine Wright, who trains Alliford Bay for Peter Redekop.
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Buoyed by the success of their 2017-18 Championship and summer meetings, Gulfstream Park officials are anticipating even bigger and better things when the 2018-19 Championship meet begins Saturday with the first of 89 programs through March 31.
At most, the 3-year-old filly Mission Impassible is scheduled to have two more starts before she is sent to France to be bred in early 2019. There is just enough time for a career-defining Grade 1 win, perhaps as early as Sunday’s $300,000 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at Del Mar.
The Matriarch Stakes is run at a mile on turf, ideal conditions for Mission Impassible, a Group 2 winner at a mile on turf in France in June and the runner-up in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland on Oct. 13 in her American debut.
Walter Reese, a Philadelphia native and leading trainer at five Philadelphia Park meets in the 1980s, died Nov. 10 at age 88. He is survived by his wife of 31 years, Cynthia G. Reese, an active trainer at Parx Racing.
Reese was not your typical trainer in that he was known in his heyday for occasionally commuting from his Timber Creek Farm in Robbinsville, N.J., to Philadelphia Park by helicopter.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Owner Sheila Rosenblum and trainer Linda Rice have ended their business relationship after a six-year run.
Rosenblum on Wednesday confirmed that she had moved horses to trainers Jonathan Thomas, Gary Contessa, and Jeremiah Englehart.
“I adore Linda, she’s a wonderful trainer,” Rosenblum said Wednesday at Belmont where she watched some of the horses she has with Contessa train. “I think it was just time to spread my wings.”
