SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The regally bred Dream Pauline is likely headed to the Grade 2, $250,000 Prioress Stakes here on Sept. 2 after winning a first-level allowance here Thursday by two lengths.
Dream Pauline, a daughter of Tapit out of the Grade 1 winner Dream Rush – making her a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Dreaming of Julia – was making her first start since Dec. 3, when she won first out at Aqueduct.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Wesley Ward spent Friday morning at Saratoga preparing a pair of 2-year-olds for graded stakes engagements here next weekend. The workouts were strikingly different.
Mucho Amor, a debut winner at Keeneland on April 26, worked four furlongs over the Oklahoma training track in 47.55 seconds, the fastest of 48 moves at the distance. She is preparing for next Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Adirondack Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs.
Ivan Fallunovalot, the $25,000 claim who went on to earn $1 million, has been retired and will be based at the Old Friends Farm in Georgetown, Ky., owner Lewis Matthews Jr., said Friday. The popular sprinter is expected to arrive at his new home in September.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Tyfosha was given the opportunity to make the best 3-year-old filly races of the spring earlier this year, but after finishing last in the Ashland Stakes on April 7 she was given a break. She returns in a first-level allowance sprint on Sunday in race 6 at Del Mar.
“She came out of the Ashland loaded with mucus,” trainer Doug O’Neill said Friday morning. “She had a deep respiratory infection. She’s been training real well, and we’re going back to one turn. I think she’ll run well.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Howard Grant, one of the top riders on the Southern California circuit in the early 1970s, died on Wednesday in Florida at the age of 79, according to his daughter, Deborah Lassiter.
Grant was the leading rider the summer of 1971 at Del Mar, a season highlighted by a victory in the Del Mar Derby. He was widely respected for his skill in the saddle and his perseverance in battling through weight problems.
“He was a hell of a rider,” Ron McAnally, the Hall of Fame trainer, said at his Del Mar barn on Friday morning. “We won a lot of races together.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – The undefeated stakes winner Catalina Cruiser worked a half-mile in 48 seconds on Friday at Del Mar, moving closer to a start in the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga on Sept. 1.
Friday’s workout was the first for Catalina Cruiser since an emphatic win by 7 1/4 lengths in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles here on July 21 in his stakes debut.
Trainer John Sadler said he timed Catalina Cruiser galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.80 on Friday.
“His energy level looks right,” Sadler said. “He’s very relaxed.”
Full Swing, a daughter of Coolmore’s freshman stallion Verrazano, will debut at a mile on turf Sunday at Gulfstream Park. The maiden special weight for 2-year-old fillies goes as the seventh race and Edgard Zayas has the mount from post 2.
Full Swing shares some ties with Verrazano, a multiple Grade 1 winner of $1.8 million whose biggest victories came in the Wood Memorial and Haskell. Verrazano was co-owned by Michael Tabor – who races Full Swing – and was trained in North America by Todd Pletcher – who conditions Full Swing.
With a couple of eye-catching performances at Gulfstream Park under his belt, First Mondays will soon leave South Florida to get his first test in much tougher company.
Trainer John Servis said First Mondays is scheduled to be shipped next weekend from the Palm Meadows training center to his main base at Parx Racing in suburban Philadelphia, where the 3-year-old colt will train toward the Grade 3, $300,000 Smarty Jones on Aug. 25. A good effort could then lead to a start in the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 22 at Parx.
It appears next Sunday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Longacres Mile will have the shortest field since Kid Katabatic took a seven-horse field all the way in the premier race at Emerald Downs in 1997.
There are 17 horses nominated, but according to officials at Emerald on Thursday, there are just six horses confirmed for the race.
The top horse at Emerald this year, Riser, is out with an injury. Trainer Blaine Wright did not say what the injury was but that “it is serious enough that he will miss the races we had targeted for him.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Victor Espinoza was released from a local rehabilitation clinic early Thursday afternoon, 11 days after he suffered a fractured vertebra in a training accident at Del Mar on July 22.
Espinoza was scheduled to begin in-home physical therapy on Friday, according to his agent, Brian Beach.
The 46-year-old rider was hospitalized until July 27 when he was transferred to the rehab center. Espinoza is expected to remain in the Del Mar area in coming weeks and will wear a neck brace through August.
