Treaty of Rome, beaten a neck by Guns Loaded in the one-mile Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 4, was not entered for Saturday’s Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream. Instead, he will be pointed to the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa on Feb. 8, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.
Though Brown also mentioned the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 15 as a possibility for Treaty of Rome, he said he is leaning toward the Sam Davis.
Saturday’s graded stakes for older horses at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita are missing a star from the autumn in the Grade 1 winner Subsanador.
Sidelined in October by an ankle injury, Subsanador missed the $7 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar in November and is currently undergoing rehabilitation at a farm in Hemet, Calif., with the hope of a springtime return, trainer Richard Mandella said.
“He’s four months from racing,” said Mandella, who added that Subsanador is being exercised on a water treadmill.
Since the beginning of this decade, there have been 13 instances in which jockeys have won five or more Thoroughbred races at Del Mar, Los Alamitos, or Santa Anita.
Juan Hernandez has accounted for four of those milestones, including a five-win day at Santa Anita on Thursday.
Hernandez, 32, won the third race before prevailing in four consecutive races from the fifth through eighth. He previously had a five-win day at Del Mar on Dec. 1 and rode five winners at Santa Anita on Jan. 4.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Fluffy Socks, the five-time stakes winner and $1.3 million earner, will scratch from Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf at Gulfstream Park due to an injury and will be retired, owner Sol Kumin said Friday.
Fluffy Socks was the 5-1 third choice on the morning line.
Kumin, who bred and owned this horse under Head of Plains Partners, said that trainer Chad Brown informed him Thursday that Fluffy Socks was off in her left hind leg. X-rays showed a faint line which could lead to a condylar fracture.
Del Mar will launch its 31-day summer meeting on Friday, July 18, returning to a three-day opening weekend after starting the 2024 summer meeting on a Saturday.
The track announced its racing calendar on Thursday, but it has yet to publish other details of the popular meeting, such as a stakes schedule, which is typically released in early spring.
Jockey Kazushi Kimura will miss the next four weeks of racing at Santa Anita because of a lower leg injury sustained in a starting gate incident on Jan. 16, according to his agent, Brian Beach.
“It’s a more severe injury than we thought,” Beach said on Thursday morning. “The doctors say it will be about a month or so.”
Kale’s Angel, the winner of two sprint stakes at Oaklawn Park since early December, is bound for California and a wintertime rest before resuming racing this spring.
“We’re going to bring him back for a little California sunshine,” trainer Peter Miller said on Wednesday.
Owned by Tom Kagele and Ernst Marchosky, Kale’s Angel won the $150,000 Advent Stakes at 5 1/2 furlongs for 2-year-olds at Oaklawn on Dec. 6 for his first stakes win.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Rafael Bejarano, who has the distinction of winning two runnings of the Southwest Stakes on a single day, will be chasing after his fourth victory in the race when he teams with Speed King on Saturday.
Bejarano first won the Southwest in 2012, when the race was split into divisions and he shipped in and accounted for both aboard Bob Baffert trainees Secret Circle and Castaway. Bejarano and Baffert returned a year later and won the Southwest with Super Ninety Nine.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Apprentice jockey Tyler Bacon will have the most significant mount of his career Saturday when he rides American Promise in the Grade 3, $1 million Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
And the 17-year-old is ready for the opportunity, according to American Promise’s trainer, D. Wayne Lukas.
“I started watching him here at Oaklawn and I was very impressed with him, what I saw on the racetrack, and equally impressed with the way he handles himself off the racetrack,” Lukas said. “He’s very articulate, very easy to deal with, listens very well.
