HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby picked up a new player over the weekend when Tampa Bay Derby winner Quip scratched from the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and rolled into the Oaklawn backstretch at 4:30 a.m. Saturday.
Quip tracked Sunday at Oaklawn, where he will start as one of the top choices in the Arkansas Derby, a 1 1/8-mile race that closes out the meet on Saturday. The Arkansas Derby is a points race for the Kentucky Derby.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Good Magic emerged from his Saturday victory in the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in excellent shape and will remain stabled here for the foreseeable future before moving down the road to Churchill Downs as one of the top contenders for the May 5 Kentucky Derby.
Brown reiterated Sunday morning what he told the media the previous evening at a post-race briefing – that Good Magic will remain here long enough to have at least one breeze before moving over to Louisville for at least one serious work over the Churchill main track.
The New York riding colony will welcome two old faces back to the fold this spring.
Over the next two weeks, Rajiv Maragh, who spent the winter in Southern California, and David Cohen, who returned from a three-year hiatus to ride at Oaklawn, will begin riding at Aqueduct.
Maragh will return to New York next week after riding at Santa Anita through the weekend. Maragh had 15 wins, 19 seconds, and 18 thirds from 157 mounts at Santa Anita.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Tony Dutrow’s winter hiatus is over.
From December through March, Dutrow ran only three horses, winning one race and finishing in the money with the other two. Dutrow, who was based at the Payson Park training center in Indiantown, Fla. all winter, said this was by design.
“I thought we’d have our horses fresh and well rested for April through October,” said Dutrow, who maintains an 18-horse stable that ultimately will be based at Belmont Park.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jinks Fires first showed up at Oaklawn in 1959. David Vance came along in 1962. Don Von Hemel set up shop in 1975, and D. Wayne Lukas sent a division to town for the first time in 1984.
The men are the stalwarts of the local training colony, respected as much for their accomplishments and horsemanship as their longevity in a demanding profession. They carry on when many from their generation have retired. For them, training is not just a career, it’s a passion.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It’s impossible not see to see the emotion in Kendrick Carmouche’s eyes when he talks about his friend Jose Luis Flores, the jockey who died last month as the result of injuries sustained in a spill at Parx.
Flores was one of the first people Carmouche met when he left Louisiana to begin riding at Parx several years ago. Two weeks before Flores died, Carmouche was at Parx and the two were in the jockeys’ room when Flores told him that once he reached 5,000 career wins he was going to retire. Flores had 4,650 wins.
Bobby Flay, the celebrity chef and horse owner, has resigned his seat on the board of directors of the New York Racing Association and will be replaced by Ogden Phipps II, the son of a former NYRA chairman, the late Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, NYRA said on Friday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Nobody was better prepared for the opening of Keeneland than Bret Calhoun – unless it was True Saint, whom Calhoun saddled to win the first race of the 16-day spring meet under cloudy skies Friday.
“He came to me the first of December, broke and already turned out,” Calhoun said after True Saint, ridden by Corey Lanerie, won the 4 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-olds by 1 1/4 lengths. “We’ve had him at the Evangeline training center ever since. We’ve been looking forward to coming back to Kentucky, and this was a nice way to get us started on the spring.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Friday was a busy morning for trainer Todd Pletcher at his winter home at the Palm Beach Downs training center, starting just before dawn with the first of three full sets of workers that included one of his three Kentucky Derby hopefuls, Louisiana Derby winner Noble Indy.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The last two Grade 1 races of the meet will be run over the turf here next week, and each is shaping up worthy of its ranking.
The $300,000 Maker’s 46 Mile, to be run Friday, is expected to get a sizable field that will include World Approval, Heart to Heart, Hogy, and possibly Om.
:: KEENELAND CLOCKER REPORT: Get workout grades and comments for the spring meet
