California-based trainer Peter Miller has been suspended 15 days and fined $2,500 after one of his starters tested positive for the analgesic tramadol at Del Mar last August.
The violation was found in a post-race test taken from Forgiving Spirit, who finished third in a turf sprint for $28,000 to $32,000 claimers, but was disqualified and placed sixth for causing interference.
Miller was also fined $2,500 for the infraction, according to the national Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit.
Derby Watch member Coal Battle pulled a page out of the Mystik Dan playbook last month when he traveled from his Arkansas base to Louisiana to maintain an uninterrupted training schedule ahead of a major 3-year-old prep at Oaklawn Park.
Mystik Dan traveled from Oaklawn to Fair Grounds in January 2024 just before a major snowstorm hit Arkansas and disrupted training at Oaklawn. He logged three works in Louisiana and returned to win the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn and eventually the Kentucky Derby.
Santa Anita-based Bullard is headed to Oaklawn for the Rebel, and armchair handicappers might view his past performances and conclude he is merely a late-running sprinter. His first two starts were last-to-first sprint wins, including the Grade 3 Bob Hope on Nov. 17 at Del Mar, followed by an even-paced third in the seven-furlong San Vicente on Jan. 4 at Santa Anita.
“I sprinted him [again in the San Vicente] strictly because I didn’t want to wait another month to run him,” trainer Michael McCarthy said. “The winner of the San Vicente [Barnes] is a fast horse.”
Plans are fluid for California 3-year-olds, but well-seasoned Citizen Bull could start just once more before the Kentucky Derby, while lightly raced Barnes and Rodriguez have time for two more starts beginning with the Grade 2 Rebel on Feb. 22 at Oaklawn Park or Grade 2 San Felipe on March 1 at Santa Anita. Citizen Bull, Barnes, and Rodriguez are trained by Bob Baffert.
“I might wait for the Santa Anita Derby with” Citizen Bull, Baffert said last weekend.
The 3-year-old filly Ballerina d’Oro won’t start Saturday at Fair Grounds in the Rachel Alexandra Stakes. Her trainer, Chad Brown, said Ballerina d’Oro developed a fever shortly before she was to have shipped from the Payson Park training center in Florida earlier this week.
Quickick, a Saratoga maiden winner before finishing second in the Grade 1 Alcibiades and third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, was not quite ready for Saturday’s Rachel Alexandra Stakes and instead will make her 3-year-old debut on Feb. 22 in the Honeybee at Oaklawn.
“Our goal was to run [in the Rachel Alexandra], but I felt like we needed one more work to really be confident in her fitness,” trainer Tom Amoss said.
Disco Time, 3 for 3 to start his career and a late-rallying winner last month in the Lecomte, has been notably absent from the Fair Grounds work tab since that race and is not entered in Saturday's Risen Star Stakes.
“He’s fine. We just had a little setback with him,” said Brad Cox, who trains Disco Time for his breeder, Juddmonte.
Disco Time won a pair of one-turn races in Kentucky before closing from 10th to win the Lecomte with a modest 77 Beyer. Cox said the colt is in training and will be pointed toward the Louisiana Derby, Arkansas Derby, or Blue Grass.
In the days after Built struggled home second on Jan. 18 in the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds, trainer Wayne Catalano deemed the horse an unlikely runner in the Risen Star Stakes. Built had scored a sharp victory a month earlier in the Gun Runner, and Catalano figured he’d bring a fresh horse into the Louisiana Derby on March 22.
But there’s been a change of plans. Built showed up in the entries when the Grade 2, $500,000 Risen Star was drawn Saturday, and Catalano said the intention is to run.
Jockey Sahin Civaci has twice been cited by the New York stewards for “failing to put forth his best effort” costing his horses a placing in two races at Aqueduct, according to two stewards rulings.
The stewards fined Civaci $2,000 for his ride on Asset Management in the second race on Feb. 1. Asset Management finished fifth, beaten a nose for fourth. The difference in purse money for the connections between fourth and fifth place in that race was $1,480.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Steven Schauer has made a pretty nice transition from owner to trainer.
Schauer, who, as an owner raced under the moniker The Players Group, took his wife Carmen’s advice last year and took out his trainer’s license. After losing with his first six starters, Schauer has started 2025 with three wins from three starters.
“It’s challenging,” Schauer said. “So far, so good. I can’t complain.”
