HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Whitmore is gearing up for another season at Oaklawn Park, where he has won the past two runnings of the Grade 3, $400,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap.
“Our ultimate goal at Oaklawn is the Count Fleet, and he’ll have an out before then,” said trainer Ron Moquett. “It will probably be like last year, in the Hot Springs.”
Whitmore won that race a year ago at Oaklawn. The 2019 renewal of the $150,000 race at six furlongs is March 9.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The extended 2019 Saratoga meet will have 76 stakes worth $20.85 million, according to a schedule released Friday by the New York Racing Association.
The schedule for the 40-day meet, which will run from July 11 through Sept. 2 – one week longer than in past years – includes the recently announced $1 million Saratoga Derby and $750,000 Saratoga Oaks as well as two new turf sprints for 3-year-olds, the Mahony and Galway.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A longtime racing official has been fired after incorrect placings were momentarily posted following the sixth race last Sunday at Gulfstream.
Dave Zenner, one of two placing judges on duty when the error occurred, confirmed this week he has been terminated by The Stronach Group, which owns Gulfstream. The second placing judge, Mary Peterman, has continued performing administrative work and other duties in the racing office while being retained by the company, although she is not currently being used as a placing judge.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Some racing fans might have thought they were in a time warp Thursday at Gulfstream Park when Eduardo Nunez and Manoel Cruz rode back-to-back winners.
Nunez, 52, who won aboard Alpilles ($5.60) in the sixth race, was winning for the first time in six 2019 mounts after going 6 for 137 last year. Alpilles, trained by Wesley Ward, was his first winner since Dec. 6 at Gulfstream.
Cruz, 48, won the seventh race on Neuqua ($7) for trainer David Hinsley. It was his first victory at Gulfstream since Sept. 29, a span of 61 winless mounts.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Kathryn the Wise, the 10 3/4-length winner of the La Verdad Stakes at Aqueduct on Jan. 5, was conspicuous by her absence from either the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel Park or the Broadway Stakes at Aqueduct, both on Saturday.
Trainer Chad Brown said that since the La Verdad, Kathryn the Wise had developed a foot issue known as a “shed frog” that kept her out of training for several weeks. A frog is the bottom part of a horse’s foot that acts as a shock absorber.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Owner Adam Wachtel has moved two horses to Bill Mott’s New York barn.
Last weekend, Wachtel closed a deal to privately purchase the 3-year-old New York-bred Durkin’s Call from trainer Michael Trombetta. Durkin’s Call, a son of Jump Start who has run eight times, won a starter allowance in the final jump at Aqueduct on Feb. 1, earning a 74 Beyer Speed Figure.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In 2017, Twisted Tom won six of seven starts, including five stakes, and was voted the New York-bred champion 3-year-old male.
Twisted Tom, then trained by Chad Brown, was the wise-guy horse of that year’s Belmont Stakes, and finished a well-beaten sixth as a 9-1 underlay.
Twisted Tom did not come back the same horse as a 4-year-old. He was well beaten as the favorite in two New York-bred stakes, and his career seemed in peril.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The $100,000 Sweet Life Stakes for 3-year-old fillies last Sunday will be recognized as a Grade 3 race even though the surface was switched from turf to dirt because of wet conditions, the American Graded Stakes Committee announced on Thursday.
The Sweet Life Stakes was immediately downgraded from a Grade 3 to a listed race before the committee conducted its review this week.
The seven-furlong Barbara Fritchie and General George stakes, co-featured on Saturday's Winter Carnival card at Laurel Park, have drawn large, competitive fields. The Grade 3, $250,000 races are supported by three other stakes, the Miracle Wood and Wide Country for 3-year-olds and the John B. Campbell, a 1 1/8-mile race for 4-year-olds and up.
The Fritchie, for fillies and mares, has a field of 11 and offers the best matchup of the day. The top contenders - Late Night Pow Wow, Ms Locust Point, Dawn the Destroyer, and Spiced Perfection - all enter off a victory.
