DEL MAR, Calif. – Ask Alfredo Marquez how he’s doing and you’ll always get the same response from the sunny, upbeat trainer: “Super excellent. And getting better.”
That’s certainly true this summer at Del Mar. Marquez, 70, by choice limits his barn to just seven horses, but they have produced, with four wins from a mere eight starters.
“Dream of a lifetime,” he said of his Del Mar strike rate. “It’s unreal. Still can’t believe it.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Robertino Diodoro registered the 2,000th win of his training career when sending out Benefactor ($7.70) to capture the first race on Monday’s card at Saratoga.
Diodoro, 44, saddled his first winner in 1995. A relative newcomer to the New York circuit, Diodoro has won 30 races at NYRA tracks this season. Benefactor was his fifth winner of the current meet, surpassing his total of three victories during the 2017 Saratoga session.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After winning the race the last two years, trainer Bob Baffert won’t have a runner in this year’s Travers Stakes, but he certainly will have a significant player in one of Saturday’s undercard races.
Baffert is shipping champion 3-year-old filly Abel Tasman to Saratoga for Saturday’s Grade 1, $700,000 Personal Ensign Stakes, where she will square off again with Elate in a rematch of last summer’s Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks, won narrowly by Abel Tasman.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer Bob Baffert will be on the banquet circuit of sorts this week, being inducted into two different halls of fame.
On Wednesday, Baffert will be inducted in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, along with, among others, Thoroughbred owner and breeder Ken Ramsey. That ceremony will be held at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer D. Wayne Lukas has participated in 19 Travers over 30 years, winning three of them. The common denominator in those three? Toughness.
All three – Corporate Report (1991), Thunder Gulch (1995), and Will Take Charge (2013) – survived running in all three legs of the Triple Crown. They then had one race between the Belmont Stakes and the Travers.
“The ones I’ve had the best luck with is when I can really lean on them,” Lukas said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After experiencing a dream come true by getting to the Kentucky Derby earlier this year with Firenze Fire, owner Ron Lombardi and trainer Jason Servis focused on what would work best for the Grade 1 winner during the second half of his 3-year-old campaign. Thus far, that plan has worked out pretty well for the homebred son of Poseidon’s Warrior, who began his summer with an eye-catching victory in the Grade 3 Dwyer at Belmont Park.
DEL MAR, Calif. – John Sadler and Drayden Van Dyke, the hottest trainer and jockey at Del Mar last weekend, will team anew in two of the three stakes this weekend, including with Catalina Cruiser in what is shaping up as a terrific Grade 2, $200,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes on Saturday.
Catalina Cruiser, winner of the San Diego Handicap in his last start and unbeaten in three starts, will turn back to seven furlongs for the Pat O’Brien, which is a Win and You’re In for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Spring Quality, winner of the Grade 1 Manhattan who was scratched out of the Arlington Million on Aug. 11, worked five furlongs in 1:02.50 Monday morning over the Oklahoma turf course in preparation for a start in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Sword Dancer Stakes at Saratoga.
Spring Quality started two lengths behind stablemate Scholar Athlete and drew within a length after three furlongs in 38.78 seconds. The pair finished on even terms with Spring Quality shading 24 seconds in the final quarter.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Highway Star lost her left hind shoe during a half-mile workout in 46.80 seconds Monday morning over Saratoga’s main track and trainer Rodrigo Ubillo wanted to monitor her foot before committing to run in Saturday’s Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes.
The foot is the same one with which Highway Star kicked a stall wall earlier this summer, an incident that kept her off the work tab for a month.
Though the workout was faster than he was looking for, Ubillo was encouraged by how easily Highway Star appeared to do it under Luis Saez.
Flameaway and Diamond King, both alums of this year's Triple Crown trail, top a field of eight 3-year-olds drawn for the Grade 3, $300,000 Smarty Jones Stakes on Saturday at Parx Racing. The race serves as a local prep for the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 22.
Flameaway, last seen finishing second by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, will be seeking his fifth career stakes win for trainer Mark Casse. The Scat Daddy colt finished 13th in the Kentucky Derby, sitting fourth at the quarter pole but fading late.
