ARCADIA, Calif. - Last year, McKinzie missed the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby because of a minor injury, and the setback kept him out of the Triple Crown. This year, McKinzie is on schedule for the leading race for older horses at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.
McKinzie, the winner of three Grade 1 races, will make his next start in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 9 and will not be sent to Dubai for the $12 million Dubai World Cup on March 30, trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday.
Mind Control ramped up his preparations for the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct on March 9 by working five furlongs in 1:01.44 Sunday morning over Belmont Park’s main track.
After his last four workouts were by himself, Mind Control worked in company Sunday with the unraced 3-year-old Powerfully Built.
Mind Control, with Chris DeCarlo in the saddle, started about five lengths behind Powerfully Built. Mind Control went his opening quarter in 23.19 seconds.
Last year, it was easy for trainer Linda Rice to keep half-sisters Midnight Disguise and Holiday Disguise apart. Midnight Disguise was 3 and was kept in races against her own age group, while Holiday Disguise was racing against older.
This year, Rice may have to get creative in keeping the two New York-bred females, out of the mare Thin Disguise, apart as both are now eligible for the same races.
The good news is that both Holiday Disguise and Midnight Disguise showed in their seasonal debuts that they can still compete at a high level.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Jockey Kendrick Carmouche, sidelined since September after breaking his leg in a spill at Kentucky Downs, has been getting on horses in the morning for two weeks and is targeting March 1 as his return to race-riding.
“Can’t wait to get back to that winner’s circle, man,” Carmouche said Sunday morning at Belmont Park, where he worked horses for trainers Danny Gargan and Chad Brown. “I think a lot of fans and a lot family members want to see it, too.”
Network Effect, the runner-up in two graded stakes as a juvenile and a member of Daily Racing Form’s first installment of Derby Watch, has been taken off the Triple Crown trail due to “a minor setback,” trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.
“I’m going to back off the horse a little bit,” Brown said by phone from South Florida. “It’s a minor setback. Hopefully, I’ll have him in good shape for the summer.
“It’s disappointing. We were looking to make the Derby with him. It wasn’t meant to be.”
Brown said the horse will remain in his barn at Palm Meadows.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The hospitalization and months of physical therapy are complete. Nearly seven months after suffering a spinal injury in an accident in a morning workout at Del Mar, Hall of Fame jockey Victor Espinoza returns to race riding with one mount at Santa Anita on Monday.
Espinoza is booked to ride Gallantlystreaming in the first race, a $50,000 claimer for 3-year-old maiden fillies on the hillside turf course.
“I think I’m 100 percent ready,” Espinoza said on Saturday morning.
NEW ORLEANS – Champion filly Monomoy Girl will have her first workout of 2019 Sunday at Fair Grounds – or at least something close to it.
Monomoy Girl has advanced enough in her daily gallops here that trainer Brad Cox said he’ll train her at a two-minute-lick pace Sunday morning. Whether Monomoy Girl goes fast enough to make the official work tab is uncertain, Cox said. If she doesn’t, she’s likely to post her first timed work of 2019 the following weekend.
“She looks fantastic,” Cox said.
NEW ORLEANS – The 3-year-old filly Grandaria, third, beaten six lengths as the 3-2 favorite last month at Fair Grounds in the Silverbulletday Stakes, is out of training for 60 to 90 days, according to trainer Brendan Walsh.
“It’s not a major issue at all, but she’ll need to go and have a job done,” said Walsh, who expects Grandaria to rejoin his stable in Kentucky this spring.
Grandaria won a Churchill maiden race and a Fair Grounds allowance race in successive starts late last year.
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Dallas Stewart seriously believes Seeking the Soul can get 1 ¼ miles and win the $12 million Dubai World Cup on March 30, but there was nothing especially serious about Seeking the Soul’s half-mile workout Friday morning at Fair Grounds.
“Just maintenance,” said Stewart, who trains Seeking the Soul for owner Chuck Fipke.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Trainer Keith Desormeaux will attempt to win the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn for the second year in a row Monday when he sends out Sueno in the points race for the Kentucky Derby.
My Boy Jack captured the Southwest a year ago with authority, closing for a 4 1/2-length win at 8-1.
“That was an exciting day last year,” Desormeaux said. “It was a great stepping-stone for an exciting year, and hopefully Sueno can follow in My Boy Jack’s footsteps.”
