LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Gun Runner will have regular rider Florent Geroux aboard early Sunday when he puts in in his final breeze prior to leaving for Southern California the following morning.
Gun Runner was a 10-length winner of the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga earlier this month in what will be his final start prior to the Nov. 4 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar. The 4-year-old colt will be based at Santa Anita before having one breeze at Del Mar, which reopens for training Oct. 23.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A trio of stakes next Saturday is shaping up as a fitting end to an eventful September meet at Churchill Downs, with Honorable Duty returning as the horse to beat in the richest race, the Grade 3, $200,000 Lukas Classic.
Fair Grounds on Thursday released a stakes schedule for its 2017-2018 race meet that looks very much like the 2016-2017 stakes schedule at the historic New Orleans track.
This season’s schedule includes 57 stakes worth $6.69 million; last season, there were 60 stakes worth $6.79 million.
The finales of the open and filly divisions of the Florida Sire Stakes series, the $400,000 In Reality and My Dear Girl Stakes, will highlight next Saturday’s program at Gulfstream Park. But from the looks of the nominations released Thursday, the four undercard stakes figure to be just as attractive, featuring full and competitive fields in each event.
All four – two for older horses and two for juveniles – are scheduled for the turf.
Add Paulassilverlining and By the Moon to the list of horses that will train up to the Breeders’ Cup.
Neither one was entered Thursday for Sunday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Gallant Bloom Handicap, a stepping-stone to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 4.
Trainer Chad Brown said he felt Paulassilverlining’s fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Ballerina last month may have been a result of having too hard a race when she won the Grade 2 Honorable Miss a month earlier.
Dortmund, the Grade 1-winning millionaire who was briefly retired in the spring, worked a mile in 1:41.80 at Los Alamitos on Thursday for a scheduled start in the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 30.
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Paradise Woods, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks in April but soundly beaten in her last two starts, will have her debut against older fillies and mares in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 30.
Trainer Richard Mandella said on Thursday that he prefers the $300,000 Zenyatta Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for the 3-year-old Paradise Woods over the Grade 3 L.A. Woman Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs on Oct. 8. The distance of the Zenyatta was a leading factor, he said.
ELMONT,N.Y. – Cloud Computing, the Preakness winner, will be sidelined the remainder of the year due to a chip in a front ankle, trainer Chad Brown said Thursday morning.
Cloud Computing had the chip surgically removed by Dr. Larry Bramlage earlier this week. The horse will recuperate at Dell Ridge Farm in Kentucky before joining Brown’s stable in south Florida this winter to prepare for a 4-year-old campaign.
The chip was discovered after Cloud Computing worked a half-mile in 48.68 seconds last Saturday at Belmont Park.
DEL MAR, Calif. – A track next to the ocean in a tony suburban community hardly seems the place for an old-fashioned Western shootout. That’s supposed to take place in some dusty town, where the people and the liquor are hard.
But this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic is shaping up as a showdown for Horse of the Year, with Arrogate, Collected, and Gun Runner all pointing to the race, each with a legitimate shot at the year-end title. Ready. Aim. Fire your best shot.
Jockey Jose Ortiz will take off his scheduled mounts Thursday through the weekend as a result of a knee injury sustained in a spill Wednesday at Belmont Park.
The extent of the injury will not be known until Ortiz gets an MRI, his agent, Jim Riccio Jr., said Wednesday night. The good news is X-rays taken on Ortiz’s left knee did not reveal any fractures.
“He had a hard time putting weight on it when the doctor told him to,” Riccio said. “It could be just soreness but we won’t know until we get the MRI. He’s not going to ride the rest of the week.”
