DEL MAR, Calif. – Two years ago, Ashleyluvssugar was the top turf marathon runner in California, having won consecutive Grade 2 races at Del Mar and Santa Anita.
Now 7, Ashleyluvssugar is winless in three starts this year, at a mile and 1 1/16 miles, leaving questions as to whether the gelding can regain past glory. An appearance in Saturday’s Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap at 1 3/8 miles on turf should provide answers.
Following Barkley’s 1 1/2-length win over Alert Bay in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile Sunday, his trainer Howard Belvoir said, “I am so high right now I’ll need a parachute to come down.”
“I’ve landed,” Belvoir said Wednesday morning. “That was a big one.”
Belvoir also said that Barkley came out of the race in excellent condition, but he wasn’t sure when the 5-year-old Kentucky-bred son of Munnings would make his next start.
Champagne Problems, winner of the Groupie Doll Stakes last Sunday at Ellis Park, could make her next start in the Locust Grove on opening weekend of the September meet at Churchill Downs, trainer Ian Wilkes said this week from Saratoga.
The Locust Grove, like the Groupie Doll, is a Grade 3, $100,000 race for fillies and mares. It will be run Sept. 15 at 1 1/16 miles.
DEL MAR, Calif. – A lot has changed for The Lieutenant over the past few months, much of it none of his doing.
Yes, he’s progressed into a Grade 3 stakes winner, and on Saturday he’ll take a shot at a Grade 1 victory in the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar. But the residual value of The Lieutenant has gone up and can skyrocket further if he wins on Saturday, all owing to his very famous younger brother.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Bill Tharrenos has some tentative plans for his unbeaten geldings Stolen Identity and Not So Quiet.
Stolen Identity, a flashy 2-year-old, had been working up a storm prior to his debut in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden special for Ontario-sired horses July 29. After getting bet down to 1-2, he went straight to the front and never looked back to prevail by 8 1/4 lengths. His time of 1:05.10 was good for a 66 Beyer Speed Figure.
Laurel Park will close up shop for 19 days following Sunday's card as Maryland racing shifts to the state fair in Timonium for its annual seven-day run.
Timonium will race Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Aug. 24-26, and Friday to Monday the following weekend, closing on Labor Day. The meet will include a pair of $75,000 stakes, a $20,000 trainers' participation bonus, and college scholarship giveaway day on Aug. 25.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Victor Espinoza was supposed to be riding Accelerate in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic on Saturday at Del Mar, but instead he’s forced to be an interested observer, watching the meet’s championship race while continuing to recuperate from a nasty accident nearly four weeks ago. Espinoza fractured the transverse process of his C-3 vertebra, putting him indefinitely on the sidelines.
“The hardest thing I’ve been through,” Espinoza said recently at his home just east of the track.
Trainer Jorge Navarro is dominating Monmouth Park like never before. Through Sunday, he has 63 wins during the first 38 days of the season. With 14 dates remaining, he is only two shy of the record he set in 2017, which was six more than the record of 59 he established in 2016.
Navarro has won three or more races in a day eight times this Monmouth meet. A year ago, he only had five days with three or more winners. On July 23, 2017, he tied a Monmouth record held by Todd Pletcher when he won five races on a card. He has tied that mark twice so far in 2018.
DEL MAR, Calif. - A strong six-furlong work in 1:14 by Dr. Dorr on Tuesday morning at Del Mar convinced trainer Bob Baffert to put him into the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic on Saturday, for which entries were due and posts to be drawn on Tuesday.
Baffert said he would also run Roman Rosso, but that Mubtaahij would not run.
Eight were expected to be entered: Accelerate, Beach View, Dr. Dorr, Pavel, Prime Attraction, Roman Rosso, The Lieutenant, and Two Thirty Five.
