ARCADIA, Calif. – Kanthaka, a winner of two stakes for 3-year-old sprinters this year, may have his first start against older horses in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar on July 28.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said on Thursday that Kanthaka has returned to his California stable after being withdrawn from the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park last Saturday because of a foot ailment.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Instilled Regard, unraced since a fourth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 5, has been transferred from trainer Jerry Hollendorfer to Chad Brown in New York for a late-summer campaign, owner Larry Best said on Thursday.
Instilled Regard was based in California with Hollendorfer through the Kentucky Derby before being rested on a Kentucky farm through May and early June.
“I think he added 75 to 80 pounds,” Best said. “I’ve shipped him to Belmont Park.”
Stave and Romantic Moment both make their stakes debut in the Grade 3, $100,000 Regret Stakes on Saturday night under the lights in Louisville.
Stave comes off back-to-back victories, both with jockey Gabriel Saez, who retains the mount Saturday. The Ghostzapper filly won her maiden by 6 3/4 lengths on April 20 at Keeneland, stalking the pace and then pouncing with a vengeance in the 1 1/16-mile turf race. She employed similar tactics when stretching out slightly to the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Regret in a Churchill allowance on May 19, winning by 1 1/2 lengths.
Mother Nature thwarted trainer Valorie Lund’s plan to work Mr. Jagermeister on turf last weekend, but she hopes the talented Minnesota-bred 3-year-old can get in a drill on the Canterbury Park grass Sunday.
Mr. Jagermeister has made all eight of his starts in dirt sprints, but if he works to Lund’s satisfaction on turf, she plans to enter him for the $200,000 Mystic Lake Derby on June 23 at Canterbury. That race also would mark Mr. Jagermeister’s first start around two turns.
Mywomanfromtokyo has been unbeatable in two-turn stakes restricted to Iowa-bred females. She’s run in five such races and won them all. But Mywomanfromtokyo’s streak could be in jeopardy when she faces five foes Friday night in the $65,000 Hawkeyes Stakes.
The Hawkeyes is a 1 1/16-mile race for Iowa-bred fillies and mares, and Mywomanfromtokyo won it last June by more than five lengths. But is Mywomanfromtokyo the same horse now as then? Perhaps not.
Jockey Marlon St. Julien, who suffered a spinal-cord injury when he fell from his mount at the start of a race May 19 at Prairie Meadows, continues to make steady progress in his recovery and on Tuesday was moved from Mercy Hospital in Des Moines to Craig Hospital in Inglewood, Colo., to continue his rehabilitation.
St. Julien rode in an ambulance from Mercy Hospital to the Des Moines airport before being transported in an air ambulance on to Craig, which specializes in the rehabilitation of patients with spinal-cord injuries.
The significance of Kerwin Clark’s win aboard Foxy Miss in the third race June 7 at Evangeline Downs did not hit the 59-year-old rider until he returned to the jockeys’ room. Yes, the victory on Foxy Miss, a mount he picked up that night, was his first since he sustained devastating injuries in a March 15 spill. But, there was an even deeper satisfaction.
Clark was coming back from having his jaw broken in four places, a collapsed lung, and 10 broken ribs. It was his first serious physical setback since 1986. Clark rehabbed himself, training at his home in Louisiana.
Chris Kotulak has been named chief operating officer of Fonner Park, the Grand Island, Neb., track announced. Fonner races from February to May. Kotulak joins Fonner from Remington Park in Oklahoma City, where he has served as television analyst and a marketing and communications assistant since 2011.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A field of nine older horses led by Backyard Heaven and Irish War Cry has been entered for the Grade 1, $500,000 Stephen Foster Handicap, the highlight of a Downs After Dark card Saturday night at Churchill Downs.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The 3-year-old filly division in California has undergone noticeable changes since Fool’s Paradise finished a well-beaten fifth in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks on April 7.
Midnight Bisou, who won the Santa Anita Oaks, is now based with trainer Steve Asmussen in Kentucky. Runner-up Spectator will have a New York-based summer campaign.
The absence of those fillies and a few others has led owners Paul and Zillah Reddam and trainer Ben Cecil to plan a start in Saturday’s Grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita with Fool’s Paradise.
