Officials at Ellis Park and Kentucky Downs announced Friday that four turf stakes worth as much as $100,000 apiece will be run on a new Kentucky Downs Preview Day, Aug. 5, at Ellis in western Kentucky.
The purse for each race will be $75,000, with another $25,000 in bonuses available to registered Kentucky-breds. Funded by Kentucky Downs through its lucrative historical-racing machine business, the Preview races are designed as preps for the rich Kentucky Downs meet, which runs Sept. 1-13.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With only three stakes left at the 16-day Keeneland spring meet following the big Jenny Wiley card here Saturday, allowance races will serve as the features on most remaining cards. That’s the case Sunday, when three allowances will anchor a nine-race program that starts at 1:05 p.m. Eastern.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Don’t anybody worry about Calvin Borel. He’s just fine.
“Everything’s good, brother,” Borel said after breaking a drought by winning the fifth race Wednesday at Keeneland aboard 16-1 shot American Greatness. “I’m happy.”
Borel maintains an upbeat attitude despite a slide in his Hall of Fame riding career. His Wednesday upset came in his first mount since he took time off to visit with his older brother, former trainer Cecil Borel, in their native Louisiana, following a Fair Grounds meet during which the jockey went 6 for 117.
Jockey David Cohen on Saturday will attempt to close out what has been a very successful comeback meet with a win in the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap. He will ride Inside Straight, who captured the race a year ago. Cohen has been working the horse for trainer Robertino Diodoro.
“He’s worked very good,” Cohen said. “He’s a very classy horse. I could see very easily why he won that race last year.”
Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. is building an outstanding record at Oaklawn, where he will win a sixth consecutive riding title when the meet ends Saturday.
Santana hit a milestone of 1,000 Thoroughbred wins in North America on Thursday when he guided Westfest to victory in the sixth race at Oaklawn.
Santana is a native of Panama who won his first race in the United States in 2009 at Delaware Park. He had won more than 50 races in Panama before that, and was his country’s leading apprentice, said his agent, Ruben Munoz.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The 7-year-old sprinter Smart Spree has had a remarkable season at Oaklawn Park, and his trainer Norm McKnight hasn’t done badly himself. On Saturday, Smart Spree will try to put the icing on McKnight’s first Oaklawn season as a top contender in the Grade 3, $400,000 Count Fleet Handicap.
McKnight topped Mark Casse in the Woodbine trainer standings last year after finishing second to him in 2016. He brought 24 horses to Oaklawn this winter, and coming into the Thursday card was seventh in the standings with a 16-for-75 record and a 21 percent win average.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl. – Trainer Rick Violette toyed at one point with the idea of running his Grade 1 winner Diversify in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup. But when that window of opportunity closed earlier this winter, Violette decided on taking another path with the speedy New York-bred, who will now kick off his 2018 campaign a week from Saturday in the $1.2 million Charles Town Classic.
Diversify has spent the past several months at the Palm Meadows training center, where he’ll have one more work this weekend prior to shipping out early next week for the race.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Midnight Bisou and Skye Diamonds will be late arrivals to Churchill Downs for Kentucky Derby weekend stakes engagements, trainer Bill Spawr said Thursday at his Santa Anita stable.
Midnight Bisou, impressive winner of the Santa Anita Oaks, ships to Churchill Downs on April 30, four days before she runs in the Kentucky Oaks on May 4. Skye Diamonds, the graded stakes winner targeting the Humana Distaff on May 5, will be on the same flight.
Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin isn’t typically a participant in the early 2-year-old races run on this circuit. He may be this year.
McLaughlin purchased privately the juvenile filly No Limit Babe after she finished second to Luv This Lifestyle at Keeneland on Sunday. McLaughlin purchased the daughter of Artie Schiller on behalf of owners Terry Murray and Paul Braverman.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Joking, who hasn’t run since winning the Grade 1 Vosburgh at Belmont in 2016, has worked three times in two weeks as he attempts to return to the races as a 9-year-old later this spring.
On Monday, Joking worked a half-mile in 49.75 seconds over the Belmont Park training track. He had a pair of three-furlong works before then.
“So far, he’s been going good, he’ll work again this Saturday,” trainer and owner Charlton Baker said.
