HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Hall of Fame rider Gary Stevens moved his tack from Southern California to base at Oaklawn in January. Rather than returning to California, he will be making another change after the Oaklawn meet ends April 14.
Stevens said Thursday he intends to ride at Keeneland, Churchill Downs, and Saratoga through the spring and summer. He said he last was based at Keeneland in 2005. Next year, it is his intention to return to Oaklawn.
“That’s the plan,” Stevens said.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – General manager Billy Badgett announced Thursday that the Gulfstream Park turf course will undergo an extensive overhaul following the conclusion of the championship meet, April 1.
Turf racing at the spring-summer meet, which begins April 5, will not be interrupted. The inner half of the turf course will be renovated while racing continues over the outer half, and then the outer half will be renovated with racing over the inner half.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The million-dollar-earning New York-bred Weekend Hideaway is close to making his 8-year-old debut for trainer Phil Serpe.
Weekend Hideaway was entered for the main track in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park on Thursday, but that race remained on the turf so he was scratched.
Serpe said there is an allowance race at Gulfstream on the March 31 Florida Derby Day card that he could run Weekend Hideaway in, or he could look for something in New York in April.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sounds Delicious, who rolled to an eight-length victory in last Saturday’s Correction Stakes, will make her next start in the Grade 3, $150,000 Distaff Handicap on April 6, trainer Linda Rice said Thursday.
Rice said Sounds Delicious came out of the Correction “great, really well” and deserves the opportunity at a graded race.
Sounds Delicious, a daughter of Yes It’s True, ran six furlongs in 1:11.25 and earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 96. She is 5 for 6 in her career.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – On March 31, 2010, Aegean Breeze splashed her way to a four-length victory over Aqueduct’s main track at odds of 21-1. It was the first victory for Rudy Rodriguez as a trainer.
Eight years later, and Rodriguez is now closing on career victory 1,000, which could very well occur next Saturday, March 31, at Aqueduct. That day is New York’s Claiming Championships, a card of 10 starter allowance stakes on which Rodriguez said he could have an entrant in every race.
The Player was doing too much playing, trainer Buff Bradley and jockey Calvin Borel decided.
The horse needed to get his head in the game, so Bradley fitted him with a set of blinkers for the Mineshaft Handicap on Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds, and The Player hit it out of the park.
The Player won the Mineshaft under Borel by more than four lengths, earning a career-best 100 Beyer, and galloped out far in front. The Player is the rail-drawn controlling speed Saturday at Fair Grounds, and could toy with five foes in the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap.
Jockey Jose Luis Flores, a winner of 4,650 races, died Thursday afternoon after suffering severe cranial and spinal injuries in a spill during the ninth race at Parx Racing on Monday. Flores’s death was confirmed by his agent of 14 years, David Yannuzzi.
Love Rules and Flores were dueling for the lead between horses on the far turn of the six-furlong starter allowance when Love Rules fell. A trailing horse, The Pooch, fell over Love Rules and Flores. A third horse, Easy River, unseated his rider while avoiding the two fallen horses.
ARCADIA, Calif. - A wet morning and a forecast of widespread rain through the day prompted Santa Anita management to cancel Thursday’s eight-race program.
The announcement was made at 9:35 a.m., well before the scheduled first post time of noon Pacific.
The rain was expected to be so severe in Southern California that some neighborhoods affected by devastating mudslides in January were ordered evacuated. Those residences are well north of Santa Anita.
NEW ORLEANS – In a perfect world trainer Kiaran McLaughin would be going for a pair of major victories on Saturday here at Fair Grounds, but after Avery Island was knocked off the Kentucky Derby trail and out of the Louisiana Derby, McLaughlin will have to settle for taking just one shot, but it looks like a good one, for the promising Lucullan will be going for his third win in his last four starts in the Grade 2, $300,000 Muniz Memorial Handicap.
Oaklawn announced Wednesday that the $10.7 million bet on the Rebel Day program from all sources last Saturday was a record for a March program at the track and a record outside of an Arkansas Derby Day. The 10-race program featured the Rebel, the Azeri, and the Essex. Handle on the Rebel, won by Magnum Moon, was $1,169,195.
“Our Rebel Day has grown into the second-biggest day and it’s fighting to be first, just right behind our derby,” said Oaklawn president Lou Cella. “It is a huge day.”
Attendance ontrack was an estimated 37,500.
