ARCADIA, Calif. – The flashy 3-year-old filly Amada Rafaela was euthanized Thursday after she was injured and pulled up during the seventh race at Santa Anita.
Amada Rafaela was making just the second start of her career, following a smashing May 5 debut for trainer Bob Baffert. She won that six-furlong race by more than eight lengths in 1:09.88 and earned a 97 Beyer, which matched the highest of the year by a 3-year-old filly.
Retama Park near San Antonio has a new format for its meet that opens July 6, but the El Joven and La Senorita for 2-year-olds on turf will again highlight the stakes schedule. Retama is putting on a mixed meet this year and will largely feature Quarter Horses on Fridays and Saturdays and Thoroughbreds on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The season runs through Sept. 5.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Neil Drysdale was back in Southern California Friday morning, but his filly La Sardane will remain in New York for the foreseeable future following her neck victory in Thursday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Intercontinental Stakes here.
Drysdale said there are no immediate plans for La Sardane who earned a 92 Beyer Speed Figure for her victory, running seven furlongs in 1:20.04.
“In my mind, she’s a miler,” Drysdale said. “Didn’t think she was ready for the Just a Game. We’ll figure it out. She’s on the right track.”
Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico has increased overnight purses – with the exception of trials – by 10 percent. The increase is retroactive to the start of the meet. The boost is due in part to play at the track’s casino, which had a makeover in advance of the start of the meet May 25.
“The opening weekend exceeded our expectations, and our goal is carry that momentum through the summer,” Jeff True, president of Ruidoso, said in a press release. “The purse boost should attract a couple more entries to each race, which is important since field size is critical to our success.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – The multiple stakes-winning New York-bred 3-year-old filly Midnight Disguise will miss the summer races due to an ankle injury, trainer Linda Rice said.
Midnight Disguise will get 60 days off after filling was discovered in an ankle shortly after her victory in the Bouwerie Stakes here on May 28, Rice said Thursday.
“We decided to stop on her and give her some time,” Rice said. “She’s accomplished a lot. She’s a big filly. I’m thinking we’ll be shooting for Belmont when we get back in the fall.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – Mitole, the freakishly fast 3-year-old sprinter, will be sidelined indefinitely due to a splint bone injury, trainer Steve Asmussen said.
Mitole, who won the Chick Lang Stakes at Pimlico during Preakness week, was under consideration for Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Woody Stephens Stakes.
“He had a couple of good weeks, but thought he was a little sensitive on the splint Monday and decided not to work him,” Asmussen said.
Asmussen said the splint would be freeze-fired and Mitole would get some time off.
Fear the Cowboy, the $1.7 million earner who ran third in last month’s Grade 3, $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap, is going into “hibernation” for the remainder of the summer, said trainer Efren Loza Jr.
“We’re going to give him a rest,” Loza said.
Fear the Cowboy returned to his Ocala, Fla., base after the Lone Star Park Handicap. The five-time stakes winner races for Kathleen Amaya and Raffaele Centofanti.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In the absence of the standout filly Elate, the role of favorite in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Handicap at Churchill Downs next Saturday likely will now fall to Valadorna or Farrell.
Churchill racing officials had been hoping to attract Elate for her 2018 debut, but the filly’s co-owner Walker Hancock of Claiborne Farm said Friday from Belmont Park the Fleur de Lis “is coming up just a bit too quick for us.”
“I wish it’d been another week later, but that’s the way it goes,” Hancock said. “We’ll probably wait now for the Delaware Handicap” on July 14.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Forrest Kaelin has disbanded his small stable due to his deteriorating health and has officially retired after more than 65 years in racing.
Kaelin, 83, was a jockey as a teenager and once rode six winners in a row on a card at the old Wheeling Downs in West Virginia. A serious injury soon thereafter led him to training, and for some 50 years, he was stabled in the same barn at Churchill, where his shed row entrance was only 50 feet or so across from that of D. Wayne Lukas.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two turf allowances (races 6 and 9), both with oversubscribed fields, highlight a 10-race Sunday card that brings a four-day race week to an end at Churchill. The second and richest is a $62,000 sprint in which the speedy Latent Revenge surely will set a quick pace when trying to outlast a well-matched set of opponents.
The ninth race also marks the return of trainer Garry Simms, who will send out Double Tuff as his first starter since the 2017 Churchill fall meet.
