ELMONT, N.Y. – Good Magic, the Kentucky Derby runner-up, came out of his fourth-place finish in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday in good order and will be freshened for a summer campaign that will likely begin in late July.
Trainer Chad Brown had said after the Derby that he did not feel the 1 1/2-mile distance of the Belmont Stakes was going to suit Good Magic.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher has won two of the last five Belmont Stakes and he is a head and a nose shy of having won four of the last five.
On June 9, when the unbeaten Justify attempts to become Thoroughbred racing’s 13th Triple Crown winner in the 150th Belmont Stakes, Pletcher will once again be a participant in the race. How many runners he has, however, will depend upon decisions that will be forthcoming from his owners.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Grade 1 winner Mubtaahij, who in his last start was third in the Dubai World Cup, drew the rail in a field of five for the Lone Star Park Handicap. The Grade 3, $200,000 race will be run on Sunday.
Mike Smith has the mount on Mubtaahij for trainer Bob Baffert, the same team that won last year’s Lone Star Park Handicap with Danzing Candy and Saturday’s Preakness with Justify.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr., a Churchill Downs-based rider who won five stakes races over Preakness weekend at Pimlico, on Sunday began serving a seven-day suspension for a riding infraction at Lone Star Park. It runs through Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Over the past four years, trainer Larry Jones would only stick around Churchill Downs in the spring through Derby week – perhaps winning a Kentucky Oaks along the way – before heading east with his stable to Delaware Park.
This late spring and summer brings change for him. A Hopkinsville, Ky. native, Jones has chosen to stay put in Kentucky, though he has not ruled out shipping to Delaware for races.
Special Blessing has made noise in Louisiana since she topped a 2-year-old in training sale for $110,000 last year in Opelousas, La. She picked up her first stakes at nearby Evangeline Downs earlier this month and on Saturday night will attempt to win another in the track’s Louisiana Legends Soiree.
Monmouth Park will have the first of its five bundled stakes days Saturday. The three-day holiday weekend will also host the popular food truck festival.
The four Saturday stakes will be part of a 50-cent pick five that will offer a unique guarantee: If there is a single winning ticket, that person is guaranteed to receive $150,000 regardless of pool size. The guarantee will also be in place on the other big days of the meet: Father’s Day, June 17; June 30; Haskell Day, July 29; and Sept. 1.
Trainer Steve Asmussen for the second year in a row took down first prize in the $100,000 Preakness weekend trainers’ competition.
Horses earned points for where they finished in stakes on Black-Eyed Susan Day and Preakness Day. Asmussen had a big weekend and took down the $50,000 top prize.
On Saturday, Asmussen won the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint with Switzerland, the $200,000 Chick Lang with Mitole, and the $100,000 James W. Murphy with Tap Daddy. He sent out Tenfold to finish a close third in the Preakness, and also earned points with five other horses.
There will be a Rainbow 6 carryover of $216,237 on Thursday at Pimlico after there were many, many winners of the wager Preakness Day.
There was a $29,406 carryover into Saturday after there were multiple winning tickets on Friday’s Black-Eyed Susan card.
The Preakness card was unusually chalky, and the 20-cent Rainbow 6 paid $41.04. The winning Rainbow 6 horses returned $2.80, $5.40, $7.80, $4, $3.20, and $2.80.
