Most trainers won’t admit to chasing a training title, but the way Mac Robertson and Robertino Diodoro have been entering races at Canterbury Park suggest both men covet the 2018 crown.
On Friday, the penultimate day of the Canterbury meet, Robertson entered 13 horses in nine of the card’s 13 races. Diodoro has an incredible 19 entrants in eight races.
Into Trouble, winner of the $75,000 Arlington-Washington Lassie on Saturday, and Big Drink of Water, who captured the $75,000 Arlington-Washington Futurity on the same card, are much different types of horses, and plans for their respective fall campaigns reflect that.
Jockey Tyler Gaffalione will be branching out following Gulfstream Park’s spring-summer meet, which closes at the end of September. Gaffalione will be based at Keeneland for the fall meet, which runs Oct. 5-27, his agent, Matt Muzikar, said Wednesday. Last fall, Gaffalione shipped in for a few mounts at Keeneland.
“We’re trying to land some Breeders’ Cup horses,” Muzikar said. “We’re taking the best opportunities given to us, and we’ll see what happens from there.”
Steve “Cowboy” Hamilton has carved out a nice niche in the Maryland jockey ranks since he resumed riding in 2016 following a 10-year hiatus to raise his two sons in his native Oklahoma. But Hamilton has been sidelined with back pain since June and is scheduled to have surgery next week to remove several small tumors at the base of his spine.
His riding future depends on how well the surgery relieves his pain.
“My spirits are up, and I’m trying to stay positive,” Hamilton said. “We’ll just have to see how we come out of it before I can say anything else.”
Following a wet summer at Monmouth Park during which 80 of 231 scheduled grass races were moved to the main track, the beat has unfortunately continued into the Monmouth-at-Meadowlands all-turf meet. The Friday opener was canceled Tuesday due to wet course conditions.
The hope is that the Meadowlands season, which will now be five days, can get under way Saturday. First post is 7 p.m. Eastern.
Trainer Luis Carvajal found a break in the rain at Parx Racing on Wednesday and worked Grade 1 winner Imperial Hint a half-mile over a muddy and sealed track. Carvajal had been considering the Grade 3 De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel Park and the Grade 1 Vosburgh at Belmont Park for Imperial Hint, and on Monday confirmed his top sprinter would make his next start in New York.
The $350,000 Vosburgh will be run Sept. 29. The $250,000 De Francis was originally going to be run this Saturday, but was moved to Sept. 22 due to weather concerns. Both races are six furlongs.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Gamble’s Ghost had a championship-like season in 2017, but she was overshadowed by her brilliant stablemate Ami’s Mesa, who won the Sovereign Award for champion older female and was second in the Canadian Horse of the Year voting.
After notching her third stakes win of the meet in dramatic fashion last Sunday in the $112,000 Belle Mahone, Gamble’s Ghost is on target to become Canada’s champion older female this year. Using her patented wide-closing style, she also won the Grade 3 Trillium and the Grade 3 Ontario Matron Stakes this year.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Reed Saldana may be the only jockey in racing history to ride the winner of a Grade 3 Quarter Horse race at Yavapai Downs in Arizona and a Thoroughbred race at Aqueduct three months apart, way back in 2008.
Those were two of his 37 winners in 611 mounts in a five-year career from 2007 to 2011.
“I wasn’t very good,” Saldana recalled on Wednesday. “I couldn’t make the weight.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – Travers winner Catholic Boy will forgo a prep race and will train up to the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs, trainer Jonathan Thomas said Wednesday.
Following the Travers, which Catholic Boy won by four lengths, Thomas had said that he might look to use the Hill Prince, a 1 1/8-mile turf race for 3-year-olds at Belmont on Oct. 6, as a stepping-stone to the Classic. But upon further review, Thomas and his ownership group – headed by Robert LaPenta – felt training Catholic Boy up to the Classic is the preferred way to go.
The Friday opening card of the Monmouth-at-Meadowlands all-turf meet was canceled Tuesday afternoon due to wet conditions and the anticipation of more rain on the way.
It rained in Northern New Jersey on Sunday and Monday, and more precipitation is possible Wednesday. Hurricane Florence is forecast to come ashore in the Carolinas early Friday, and that storm could send high winds and additional moisture north.
John Heims, the director of racing at Monmouth Park and for the six-day Meadowlands season, said Saturday would now serve as the meet opener.
