CYPRESS, Calif. – The 2-year-old Bellafina is held in such high regard that jockey Flavien Prat is flying in from New York to ride the filly in her debut at Los Alamitos on Wednesday.
Prat, the leading rider at the Santa Anita spring-summer meeting, has no other mounts on Wednesday’s nine-race program.
Trained by Simon Callaghan for Kaleem Shah, Bellafina drew the rail in a maiden special weight race at five furlongs. The field of seven includes five other first-time starters.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Lullaby Bling has established himself as a leading contender for the $100,000 Texas Thoroughbred Futurity July 15 at Lone Star Park with an eye-catching debut win here last Saturday. He rolled by 6 1/4 lengths in the maiden special weight.
“He came out of the race very well,” trainer Danele Durham said. “The next step is the Futurity.”
The Texas Thoroughbred Futurity has two divisions, each at five furlongs. The races are part of the annual Stars of Texas Day card of four restricted stakes worth a total of $300,000.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – The Gray Dehere was a clear winner of a maiden special weight for 2-year-olds last Sunday at Lone Star Park, and trainer J.R. Caldwell said the colt is now on pace to test stakes company in the $65,000 Prairie Gold Juvenile on July 20 at Prairie Meadows.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Apprentice jockey Kellie McDaid, who rides regularly in evening Thoroughbred races at Los Alamitos, won her first race on the Southern California afternoon circuit when Swallows Inn Gal ($38.20) scored an upset in a maiden claimer at Los Alamitos on Thursday.
The victory was career win No. 34 for McDaid, 28. She has a seven-pound apprentice claim that will be reduced to five pounds after her 35th win.
“That means I can eat,” McDaid joked between races Thursday.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Tisbutadream, a minor stakes winner in England last year, has joined trainer Ben Cecil’s stable for the Del Mar summer meeting. The 4-year-old filly is owned by King Power Racing, the stable of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the owner of the Leicester City soccer team in the English Premier League.
Leicester City famously won the Premier League title in the 2015-16 season at odds as high as 5,000-1.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Jockey Geovanni Franco will not ride the first two weeks of the Los Alamitos summer meeting while recovering from a strained knee, his agent, James Giannone said on Thursday.
Franco, 27, may ride the final week of the Los Alamitos meeting, beginning July 12, but is more likely to focus on the start of the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins July 18. Franco was second in the standings at the Santa Anita spring-summer meeting that ended on June 24 with 28 wins.
“We’ve shut it down,” Giannone said. “I’m not going to hurry him.”
CYPRESS, Calif. – Anna Meah, an exercise rider and assistant trainer for Art Sherman and Richard Baltas for the last five years, plans to begin training this fall.
Meah and her husband, bloodstock agent David Meah, are hoping to establish a stable of 20 horses at Santa Anita following the Del Mar summer meeting.
“This has been our plan for the last three years,” Anna Meah said. “Now is the time to do it.
“We are aiming for Nov. 1 to be set up and on the track. We’ve got a foundation of clients. We expect to increase the numbers, maybe by the spring.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although summer started June 21, for accounting purposes the Gulfstream Park summer meeting officially begins Sunday with an 11-race program highlighted by a $57,000 optional-claiming event carded at 7 1/2 furlongs on the turf for fillies and mares.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – At 1:26 Thursday afternoon Chris Banks watched a horse named Sperling finish first in the first race at Arlington. Hurray, and double hurray.
Sperling, claimed by Banks for $5,000 last October at Hawthorne, is the only horse in his stable, and the win was the first of his training career. His Thoroughbred training career, that is.
