ARCADIA, Calif. – Collected and West Coast, who were second and third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar in November, worked at Santa Anita on Wednesday in advance of the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 27.
Collected, who finished third in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26, worked five furlongs in 59 seconds in company with stablemate Cat Burglar, who was timed in 59.60 seconds.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday will provide a vital test for the 3-year-old All Out Blitz on a couple of fronts.
The $100,000 race will be the first start at a mile and the stakes debut for All Out Blitz, a promising maiden-race winner last month.
“It’s time to try two turns and test the company,” trainer Simon Callaghan said on Wednesday.
The Sham field is coming up with surprising depth. McKinzie, the winner via disqualification of the Grade 1 Los Alamitos CashCall Futurity on Dec. 9, is among seven probable starters.
Victor Carrasco, the 2013 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey and one of the top riders in Maryland, has been going to physical therapy the past six weeks as he works his way back from a serious fall at Delaware Park in September.
Carrasco was on the lead in a turf race when his mount fell nearing the far turn. Carrasco broke the tibia and fibula in his lower right leg.
Fall brings out the best in Jevian Toledo.
For the third consecutive year, Toledo topped the rider standings at the Laurel Park fall meet, which began just after Labor Day and continued through the end of the year. His 61 wins helped secure his second overall Maryland riding title.
Toledo rode 144 winners at the three 2017 Laurel meets and the 12-day Pimlico stand. Toledo, 23, also was the winningest rider in Maryland in 2015. Trevor McCarthy won the year-end titles in 2014 and 2016.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bolo, a multiple graded stakes winner on turf who was training super for his comeback, was injured in his final workout Dec. 30 at Santa Anita and will not run in the Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes on Saturday.
The winner of the Grade 2 Arcadia Stakes at Santa Anita the last two seasons and a stakes winner at ages 2, 4, and 5, Bolo has won five races and $675,390 from 17 starts. His racing future is uncertain; trainer Carla Gaines did not specify the nature of his injury.
Laurel Park has canceled its Friday and Saturday cards due to the continuing deep freeze that has gripped the Northeast for more than a week.
The temperature Friday morning in Maryland is forecast to be around 10 degrees, rising to the upper teens in the afternoon. Accuweather is predicting winds of 17 miles per hour, gusting up to 28 mph. Similar conditions are expected Saturday.
The Maryland Jockey Club canceled the Friday program on Wednesday and the Saturday races Thursday.
Vince Reed, a longtime racing analyst at Parx, died on Saturday at age 76.
Reed, whose actual name was Anthony Iacovelli, had bouts of light-headedness in the days before his death. He died at the Aria Health Torresdale Campus in Philadelphia after having fallen.
Reed, a Maryland native, worked at WBCB radio station in Levittown, Pa., since 1966, first as the news and sports director and later as a broadcaster. His specialty was high school sports.
Parx Racing has canceled its Saturday card due to frigid conditions that are expected to follow the Thursday blizzard in the Northeast.
Saturday temperatures in Bensalem, Pa. are expected to stay in the teens. Winds of 16 miles per hour, gusting to 28 mph are forecast.
Last Tuesday's card at Parx was canceled after a horse broke down in the first race and was euthanized. Temperatures on Tuesday were in the lower 20's with wind speed in the teens.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Gulfstream Park jockey colony will get even stronger with the arrival of Irad Ortiz Jr., who will begin riding regularly here on Friday.
According to his agent, Steve Rushing, Ortiz just had enough of the cold weather and growing string of weather-related cancellations this winter at Aqueduct in New York. He made the decision to switch his tack to south Florida and join his brother Jose at Gulfstream following another spate of frigid weather and cancellations in New York this past weekend.
