HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Oaklawn Park program for 3-year-olds is due a victory lap ahead of Friday’s season opener after it “hogged” the national spotlight this year with Arkansas-raced runners Mystik Dan winning the Kentucky Derby, Seize the Grey taking the Preakness, and Thorpedo Anna winning the Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
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DRF Past Performances
Average handle per race and purse per race fell by single digits during the expanded Churchill Downs fall meet that concluded on Sunday, according to an analysis by Daily Racing Form.
The average handle for the 265 races held during the meet was down 3.1 percent compared to the same figure for 231 races during the fall meet last year. Last year’s fall meet had 21 live racing days, while this year’s fall meet had 26 live race days, starting on Oct. 27 and ending on Dec. 1.
Nick Alexander, one of California’s most prominent breeders, is holding a partial dispersal of 23 horses at the Fasig-Tipton Digital Sale that begins on Thursday and continues through Dec. 11, according to a statement issued on Monday.
Alexander’s draft includes 17 California-bred yearlings and six broodmares, five of whom are in foal to Grazen, the state’s leading sire by progeny earnings in 2023.
The race for leading rider at the Del Mar autumn meeting was close as late as Sunday morning, hours before the final day of the season. Then, it wasn’t.
Juan Hernandez won five races from eight mounts on Sunday’s nine-race program to finish the season with 21 wins, five more than Umberto Rispoli.
Through Saturday, Hernandez had led Rispoli, 16 wins to 14.
A day after Sacred Wish’s surprise win in Sunday’s Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar, trainer George Weaver’s thoughts had already turned toward a potential return to the San Diego area track in 12 months.
Sacred Wish won her first graded stakes in her 11th try in the $303,000 Matriarch Stakes. Graded stakes will be a fixture of Sacred Wish’s 5-year-old season in 2025, possibly starting in the Grade 2 Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 25.
The 2025 Matriarch is another such goal.
Beginning Friday, there are 27 races remaining over the final three days of the Del Mar autumn meeting that ends on Sunday. It may take all weekend to sort out the jockey standings after the 16-day season.
Through last Sunday, the most recent day of racing, perennial leader Juan Hernandez led the standings with 13 wins, one more than Antonio Fresu and Umberto Rispoli.
Over the final three days, Hernandez will be the busiest with 20 mounts. Fresu has 17, one more than Rispoli.
Barnes, the exciting, and expensive, 2-year-old colt trained by Bob Baffert, is scheduled to return to California in the coming days after a hard-fought win in his debut at Churchill Downs on Wednesday.
Barnes, who races for Amr Zedan, could be back at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby on May 3, if he meets expectations through the winter and early spring.
On Thursday, Baffert said that he will form a plan in the near future for an early 2025 campaign for Barnes.
Overnight purses at upcoming meetings at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita will be lower than the corresponding seasons a year ago, with declines ranging from 7 to 23 percent in some categories, according to condition books recently published by both venues.
At the six-day Los Alamitos December meeting, which begins on Dec. 6 and runs through Dec. 15, a purse for a maiden race will be worth $39,000, down 13.3 percent from $45,000 during the same season in December 2023. Purses for such races were $41,000 at the track’s summer meeting and $40,000 at the September meeting.
Perhaps only a national politician can admire jockey Flavien Prat’s itinerary this week. No athlete has Prat’s schedule in such a short period of time.
After riding two winners at Mahoning Valley in Ohio on Monday, Prat had four mounts at Zia Park in New Mexico on Tuesday, finishing second in two stakes.
Led by three-time Grade 1 winner Gina Romantica, trainer Chad Brown on Monday at Belmont Park worked the four fillies and mares he intends to run in Sunday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar.
Brown’s quartet for the one-mile Matriarch also includes Child of the Moon, Prerequisite, and Tax Implications. Brown has won the Matriarch four straight years and six of the last seven. Last year, Brown ran 1-2-3-4 with Surge Capacity, Fluffy Socks, Beaute Cachee, and Whitebeam.