ARCADIA, Calif. – What a View is unlikely to try for a repeat victory in the $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes for California-bred turf milers at Santa Anita on Sunday.
Trainer Kenny Black said on Sunday that he is leaning toward starting the 7-year-old What a View in the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes, a $200,000 race at 1 1/4 miles on turf May 26, with the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on turf May 28 a less likely option.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Fault, a winner of three graded stakes at Santa Anita this year, will be sent to Belmont Park for the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes, to be run on June 9, trainer Phil D’Amato said on Sunday.
Fault won the Grade 3 Adoration Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for fillies and mares at Santa Anita on May 6. Following that race, D’Amato said he was leaning toward the $700,000 Ogden Phipps for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles instead of the Grade 1 Beholder Mile at Santa Anita on June 2, and on Sunday he confirmed that was the plan.
Trainer Jorge Navarro tied his own record for the most wins on a Monmouth Park card Sunday when he won five races.
Navarro sent out the winners of races 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 on the 11-race card. In all, Navarro sent out nine horses in seven races. Navarro's winners were Aztec Sense ($2.80), Be a Hero ($3.40), Indian Guide ($4), Terry's Charm ($2.80), and Indian Chaser ($7).
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Doug O’Neill said that when it comes to preparing for the Belmont Stakes, he will take a different approach with Blended Citizen than he did six years ago with I’ll Have Another, who was injured and scratched from the race one day before he was to make a bid for the Triple Crown.
I’ll Have Another put in strong daily 1 1/2-mile gallops after arriving in New York following the Preakness, and they apparently took their toll, as he was diagnosed with a tendon injury the day before the Belmont Stakes and was subsequently retired.
In this age of reduced foal crops and shrinking field size, the Maryland Jockey Club racing office outdid itself for the Friday card at Pimlico, which is topped by the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan and Grade 3 Pimlico Special and includes five other stakes.
The 14-race program starts at 11:30 a.m. Eastern and is loaded from top to bottom. A total of 151 horses, an average of more than 10 per race, could go postward.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The two sprint stakes for 3-year-olds run at Santa Anita on Saturday may turn out to be preps for major stakes at Belmont Park on June 9 more than graded stakes in Southern California later that month.
Kanthaka won the Grade 3 Laz Barrera Stakes at seven furlongs for his second stakes win around one turn this year. On Sunday, Terry Finley, the chief executive of the West Point Thoroughbreds partnership that owns the colt, said Kanthaka is being considered for the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs at Belmont Park on June 9.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The rematch is set.
Good Magic, second to Justify in the Kentucky Derby on May 5, will take on that rival again in Saturday’s $1.5 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico. Trainer Chad Brown, who had been hinting at running Good Magic in the Preakness since Thursday, confirmed him as a starter on Sunday after the colt galloped 1 3/8 miles over Belmont Park’s main track.
Javier Castellano will ride Diamond King in the Preakness Stakes, trainer John Servis confirmed Saturday morning.
Castellano takes over the mount from Frankie Pennington, who has won the last four riding championships at Parx Racing and has won five titles overall at the Bensalem, Pa., track where Diamond King is based.
Stephen Juliano, a popular racetrack character in the Northeast, died Wednesday at a hospital on Long Island. He was 86.
Juliano was a trainer and a jockey agent in New Jersey and New York. As a trainer, Juliano won 44 races from 460 starters in a career that spanned from 1976-84. His best horse was Hurricane Carol, with whom he won the Sensational Stakes at Monmouth Park.
As a jockey agent, Juliano worked for, among others, Michael McCarthy, Nick Santagata, and Georgina Frost.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Divine Miss Grey zipped a half-mile in 47.07 seconds Friday morning over the Belmont training track.
Trainer Danny Gargan said he is considering stretching the multiple stakes-winning miler out in distance in a race such as the Grade 2, $200,000 Fleur de Lis at Churchill Downs on June 16. The Fleur de Lis is run at 1 1/8 miles.
“She has a real high cruising speed,” Gargan said. “I think she can go long. I think her mile races are her best races. She’s bred to go long and I think that track will suit her.”
Dylan Davis gets married
