HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gulfstream officials reported this week that all-sources handle on live racing during 2018 was more than $1.75 billion, an increase of 7 percent over 2017 and another annual record for the track, which began shifting toward year-round racing in 2013.
Racing at Gulfstream West in October and November is included in the handle figure.
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said millionaire Bravazo appears to be sitting on a strong 4-year-old season that he will launch Jan. 26 in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park.
Bravazo, who won last year’s Risen Star at Fair Grounds before running second in both the Preakness and Haskell and third in both the Travers and Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, has been working at his base of Oaklawn Park.
Trainer Mike Stidham on Wednesday confirmed Tackett as an intended runner in the Jan. 19 Lecomte Stakes. Third sprinting at Laurel in his career debut, Tackett won a two-turn maiden race at Fair Grounds and captured a first-level route allowance Dec. 22 by a neck over Owendale.
“It wasn’t anything jaw dropping, but he put in a good, workmanlike effort and came out of it in good shape,” Stidham said.
Tom’s d’Etat isn’t getting any younger. The Fair Grounds-based horse just turned 6 this week. He comfortably won his stakes debut last month, capturing the $73,000 Tenacious Stakes by 3 1/2 lengths while giving weight.
Owner GMB Racing and trainer Al Stall could keep Tom’s d’Etat at home and set the New Orleans Handicap in late March as a goal. Instead, they’ve decided to hunt bigger game, and Tom’s d’Etat on Monday was pre-entered at a cost of $100,000 for the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 26 at Gulfstream Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Gray Magician will have his stakes debut in Saturday’s Grade 3 Sham Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile at Santa Anita, the first stakes of the year for the division in California in the buildup to the Triple Crown.
Gray Magician, owned by Wachtel Stable, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, and Gary Barber, won a maiden special weight race at a mile by 9 1/2 lengths at Del Mar on Nov. 24. That was his first start for trainer Peter Miller after having been trained by Hector Palma for his first three starts.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Brian Koriner has been fined $3,000 for a medication overage detected in one of his runners after a victory at Del Mar last August.
In a stipulated agreement with the California Horse Racing Board, Koriner was fined and suspended for 30 days, but the suspension was stayed if Koriner does not violate terms of a probation through 2019. One term of the probation is that Koriner cannot have any medication violation for drugs in classes 1, 2, or 3 in 2019.
Over the past few years, trainer Wesley Ward has utilized the Polytrack surface at Turfway Park during the winter months to breeze and race some of his better stakes horses. Royal Ascot conqueror Lady Aurelia was one, working there in 2017 and 2018, while Bound for Nowhere made racing appearances, winning a maiden race in January 2017 and a Turfway allowance this past March, a prep for a victory in Grade 2 Shakertown at Keeneland.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Caribou Club may have his Grade 1 debut in the $400,000 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita on March 9 after winning his second consecutive stakes in Tuesday’s Grade 3 Joe Hernandez on the hillside turf course.
Craig Bernick, whose Glen Hill Farm owns Caribou Club, said on Wednesday that the Kilroe Mile is a logical option for the 5-year-old gelding, who has won five stakes and is trained by Tom Proctor.
