ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Woodbine reported gains in all-sources handle for the third consecutive year after their 132-day meet ended on Dec. 10.
Woodbine recorded all-sources handle of $500,713,839 during the 2017 Thoroughbred meet, up 7.3 percent over 2016 with one fewer racing date. Woodbine also recorded a 1.7 percent increase in Standardbred handle over the 2017 calendar year.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Firenze Fire, the Grade 1 Champagne winner, was one of 18 horses credited with a timed workout Monday morning over the Belmont training track, the first time in four days the track was open.
Firenze Fire went a half-mile in 50.88 seconds in company with the 3-year-old maiden Daring Ego. Firenze Fire is expected to be a strong favorite in Saturday’s $150,000 Jerome Stakes for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct. Firenze Fire had basically jogged in the shed for the last four days.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Life slowly returned to normal Monday morning on the Belmont Park backstretch after a winter storm and brutally cold temperatures canceled racing and training for four consecutive days. The weather knocked out power and created broken water pipes, which in turn displaced dozens of backstretch workers and some horses.
NEW ORLEANS – Steve Asmussen has no qualms about breezing horses, even really good horses, over a wet track surface at Fair Grounds.
Just 20 horses recorded timed workouts Monday morning at sloppy Fair Grounds, where the rain ranged from steady to torrential, and more than half are trained by Asmussen. Among the trainer’s workers were all three of his entrants in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte Stakes, including 5-2 morning-line favorite Principe Guilherme.
There are 15 entered in the Lecomte, but six horses come from just two barns, with Larry Jones as well as Steve Asmussen three-handed for the race.
Jones entered Believe in Royalty, Kowboy Karma, and Prince Lucky, all of whom put in their final Lecomte works Sunday. All three went five furlongs with Prince Lucky going a bullet 1:00.20.
“That was with an exercise rider up, too,” said Jones. “He worked very well.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The second running of the $16 million Pegasus World Cup suddenly got a little more interesting with the announcement that Cigar Mile winner and Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile runner-up Sharp Azteca will join a field that was already expected to include Horse of the Year favorite Gun Runner, Collected, and West Coast.
There may not have been a more impressive 2-year-old debut winner in 2017 than Strike Power, who won his only start by eight lengths while earning a 102 Beyer Speed Figure at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 23. The question now is what does trainer Mark Hennig do next with the speedy son of Speightstown?
Strike Power had his first breeze since that performance here last Friday, a very easy half-mile in 50.25.
The Ortiz brothers combined to win nine races at Gulfstream Park this past weekend, five by Jose and four by Irad. Jose Ortiz captured a pair of stakes as part of a hat trick on Saturday’s card. Irad, who began riding here on a full-time basis just last Friday, posted doubles on both Saturday and Sunday.
Luis Saez continues to show the way in the jockey standings with 42 victories, eight more than Tyler Gaffalione.
Turf allowances featured
The works were unconventional but served their purpose.
Bob Baffert chose to work the Grade 1 winners Collected and West Coast on Santa Anita’s infield training track on Monday in advance of the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 27. Baffert wanted to work the pair on the main track, but that track was closed because of expected wet weather on Monday.
Instead, West Coast worked six furlongs in 1:13, while Collected worked in 1:13.40 on the training track, which is slightly longer than six furlongs in circumference.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Eye of the River will be a longshot in a $20,000 claiming race for maidens on Thursday at Santa Anita.
Sadly, the filly’s trainer, Martine Bellocq, remains hospitalized in San Diego with second- and third-degree burns over 50 percent of her body sustained in the wildfire that struck the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego County on Dec. 7.
