Average handle per race and average field size at the Ellis Park 2024 meet both jumped significantly compared to the regularly scheduled meet at the track last year, according to an analysis by Daily Racing Form.
Average handle per race was $318,958, up 14.4 percent over the average handle of $278,779 last year. Field size jumped from 7.99 horses per race last year to 8.50 horses, as Ellis shifted more of its racing to the turf.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – It’s been three years since Town Cruise won the $1.1 million Woodbine Mile in a storybook upset. Now the 9-year-old gelding’s racing career is winding down, according to owner-trainer Brandon Greer.
Town Cruise was winless during a brief four-race campaign in 2022 that included a fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile. He scored once in five starts last year and only recently appeared on the work tab this year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – One year after a high number of equine fatalities became the storyline of the Saratoga meet, the script flipped dramatically this summer.
There was only one racing-related equine fatality and two training fatalities during the eight weeks of the 2024 Saratoga meet that concluded Monday. That compares to nine racing-related and four training fatalities in 2023.
A yearling full brother to Free Like a Girl who topped a Texas auction at Lone Star Park late last month will eventually be sent to trainer Bret Calhoun, according to Josh Stevens, the agent who handled the purchase of the horse on behalf of Mansfield Racing.
Jockey Ramon Vazquez has won riding titles at a number of tracks like Santa Anita and Remington Park, but never at his home base of Oaklawn.
He’s hoping that might change when the season starts anew in December.
Vazquez, who has been based in New York, said over the weekend that following the close of Saratoga he will be riding in Kentucky, then head to Oaklawn. He has a house in Hot Springs, Ark.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Gary Contessa didn’t pull off a Grade 1 stakes surprise this summer at Saratoga like he did last year, but he may try to do something similar at Aqueduct.
Another Cleeshay, a New York-bred filly who won her debut by 9 1/2 lengths on Friday, will be pointed to the Grade 1 Frizette on Oct. 5 at Aqueduct, Contessa said.
“She might be a New York-bred stakes horse, she might be a Frizette horse, so I’m going to take the shot and go to the Frizette,” Contessa said Monday. “You know I like to shoot high.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Arthur’s Ride, the Grade 1 Whitney winner who faded to fifth in Saturday’s Jockey Club Gold Cup after dueling with Highland Falls, will train up to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, trainer Bill Mott said Monday.
Mott was naturally disappointed in the result of the Gold Cup, but he said Arthur’s Ride looked good Monday and feels he should benefit from having nine weeks to the Classic.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Between Monday and Tuesday, trainer Brad Cox had horses lined up to ship from Saratoga to five different tracks. After the weekend the Cox stable enjoyed, those vans were carrying even more precious cargo than perhaps anticipated.
Highland Falls, winner of Sunday’s Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, and Immersive, winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Spinaway were scheduled to ship Tuesday to Churchill Downs as they prepare for their fall campaigns, which Cox and owner Godolphin Racing hope includes starts at the Breeders’ Cup in November at Del Mar.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Attendance rose modestly while all-sources handle fell sharply on Saturday’s Pacific Classic program at Del Mar, the richest day of racing at the track’s summer meeting.
According to figures released Saturday evening, all-sources handle was $22,879,604, a decline from $27,757,766 from the corresponding day in 2023. Saturday’s handle figure was the lowest for a Pacific Classic program since the day produced a handle of $19.3 million in 2015.
The purse of the Champion of Champions on Dec. 14 at Los Alamitos, the nation’s leading race for older Quarter Horses, has been reduced from $700,000 to $600,000 because of increased fees the track must pay the California Horse Racing Board in the current fiscal year, the track announced in a statement last week.
