ELMONT, N.Y. – Significant Form heads a strong three-horse entry from trainer Chad Brown in Thursday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Wonder Again Stakes at Belmont Park.
Thursday’s card is the first day of what the New York Racing Association bills as a three-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival that concludes with next Saturday’s rich Belmont Stakes card. From Thursday through Saturday, Belmont will host 18 stakes worth $9.4 million in purses.
ELMONT, N.Y. _ Blended Citizen will be the only one of the expected 11 or 12 starters in the Belmont Stakes with a previous start over the Belmont Park main track. On Saturday, he became the fourth - and probably final - prospective Belmont starter to get a workout over the main track as well.
Blended Citizen, who won the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes here three weeks ago, breezed five furlongs in 1:00.88, according to Daily Racing Form clocker Mike Welsch. Blended Citizen, with Mike Luzzi aboard, worked at 12:50 p.m., 40 minutes before the first race on the Belmont card.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Gronkowski passed the audition.
After his second solid workout in a week, the European import was confirmed by trainer Chad Brown as a starter for next Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.
Gronkowski, with Jose Ortiz up, worked inside of Engage, who is pointing to the Grade 2 Woody Stephens, for the second straight week. Gronkowski broke off about three-quarters of a length in front and led Engage through an opening quarter in 25.90 seconds as the two drew on even terms.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On a Saturday morning at Churchill Downs when Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Justify had a maintenance training day with a gallop, one of his rivals for next Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, Tenfold, got a little more serious, breezing five furlongs in 1:01.60 over a fast track.
Trainer John M. Cooper and his son, Gavyn, died in a plane crash Thursday night shortly after taking off from Midland International Airport in Midland, Texas, according to a press release from Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.
Cooper, who last weekend qualified a Quarter Horse for the Grade 1, $1 million Ruidoso Futurity, and Gavyn, 16, were the lone people on board the single-engine plane. Gavyn was a quarterback for Midland High School.
The crash, which happened at 7:20 p.m., is being investigated, according to the press release.
Belmont Park
Friday, June 1
Weather: Rain
Training track: Good/muddy
Temperature: 68
ELMONT, N.Y. – Unfortunately, there will be no Audible in the starting lineup for Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. But there certainly were plenty of weather- and track-related audibles being called around Belmont Park on Friday when it came to the workout schedules for three of the principal players in the final leg of this year’s Triple Crown.
Add Rugbyman to the list of prospective starters for next Saturday’s Easy Goer Stakes.
Trainer Graham Motion made that decision not long after the lightly raced Tapit colt worked four furlongs in dense fog in 48.60 seconds over the Belmont Park main track under jockey Jose Ortiz early Friday morning.
Rugbyman enters the 1 1/16-mile Easy Goer off a 14-length maiden win here May 13. He had finished third in his career debut four weeks earlier at Keeneland.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Before the heavy rain came and impacted track conditions Friday, trainer Todd Pletcher got in key workouts for several of his Belmont Stakes Day runners.
Ivy Bell and Unbridled Mo worked a half-mile in 48.95 seconds in company for next Saturday’s Grade 1 Ogden Phipps. Pletcher said he might cross-enter Ivy Bell in Friday’s Bed o’ Roses but is leaning toward the Phipps.
ELMONT, N.Y. – When trying to determine why Awesome Slew ran so poorly in last year’s Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, trainer Mark Casse felt one potential reason was that he shipped the horse to New York too late.
This year, Casse decided to ship the horse to Belmont early enough to get him a workout over the main track in preparation for the $1.2 million Met Mile. That plan fell through when Mother Nature doused the area with heavy rain Friday morning, prompting assistant trainer Jamie Begg to move Awesome Slew’s work to the training track.
Yo Y Me, a multiple stakes winner in his native Arizona, invades Colorado on Sunday to run in the $30,000 Arapahoe Park Sprint. He is part of a field of eight for a five-furlong race for 3-year-olds and up.
Others set to start include Z Smoking Gun, who was second in last year’s Arapahoe Sprint, and Rainbow Squall, winner of a $50,000 starter allowance at Santa Anita in his last start March 24.
