Ivan Fallunovalot set quick fractions and rolled home by 5 3/4 lengths in a Saturday night allowance race at Remington Park that marked the Grade 3 winner’s first start since March. He covered six furlongs on a fast track in 1:08.28 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 99.
“He came back real good,” trainer Tom Howard said Monday. “He got a good, clean trip. He just got out there and did his thing.”
BENSALEM, Pa. - The first race at Parx on Sunday was ruled a dead heat after the photo-finish camera malfunctioned, according to track officials. The outcome of the race has since been appealed to the Pennsylvania Racing Commission by the connections of one of the horses involved.
Promise the Sky and Joywave battled the final five-sixteenths in the mile and 70-yard race for nonwinners-of-two $7,500 claimers, with Joywave on the inside. The two horses hit the wire in a head-bobbing finish.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer John Brocklebank has been fined $750 after one of his runners at Santa Anita in June tested in excess of the permitted level of the anti-inflammatory dexamethasone.
The test was taken from Spirit of Shanghai, who won a $40,000 claiming race for maiden 2-year-olds as the 6-5 favorite in the first race on June 18.
The post-race test found 149 picograms of dexamethasone, well above the permitted level of five picograms, according to California Horse Racing Board rules.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Norberto Arroyo Jr. cannot be named to ride until he contacts the stewards to discuss his abrupt departure from Del Mar in the middle of Saturday’s program, steward Kim Sawyer said on Sunday.
Arroyo had one mount remaining on Saturday when he told his jockeys’ room valet that he had a family emergency and left the track, steward Grant Baker said last Saturday. Arroyo did not alert jockeys’ room officials or track stewards of his departure, Baker said.
Gold Rush Dancer, the winner of the Grade 3 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in Washington on Aug. 13, may be favored in Saturday’s $75,000 E.B. Johnston Stakes for California-breds at a mile at Los Alamitos.
Sunday at Del Mar, Gold Rush Dancer had his final workout, going a half-mile in 46.80 seconds, the fastest of 62 works at the distance.
“That was a damn fine work,” trainer Vann Belvoir said as Gold Rush Dancer galloped out.
What do you get when you combine the winners of the Travers Stakes, Kentucky Oaks, Pacific Classic, and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies?
The Monday work tab at Del Mar.
It was an all-star lineup that hit the track early Monday prior to the final card of the meet, with the likes of West Coast, Abel Tasman, Collected, and Champagne Room working, along with such top-class runners as Cupid and Vale Dori.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Bob Baffert on Saturday overtook the late Mike Mitchell for the most career wins at Del Mar among trainers, although the feat was not announced to the crowd at Del Mar until Sunday.
Baffert began the meet 10 wins behind Mitchell, who won 476 races at Del Mar over 37 seasons. Baffert won three races on Saturday to first tie and then surpass Mitchell, then captured his 12th race of the meet on Sunday – giving him 478 career wins – with the first-time starter Alluring Star. Baffert’s achievement was announced to the crowd after that race.
Storm Runner was a whopping 159-1 when he finished second last month under apprentice Rogelio Miranda in his lone start, a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race on the main track at Ellis Park. Team Valor founder Barry Irwin said the debut effort piqued his interest to the extent that he arranged the purchase of the 2-year-old Get Stormy colt on behalf of Team Valor and Gemstone Stables, and Storm Runner returns in the fifth race Thursday at Kentucky Downs.
Irwin said that one reason he bought Storm Runner was because he is bred to go long on grass.
Wayne Catalano has won more than 2,700 races since he switched from riding to training in 1983. One of those wins came with future Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom in a 2-year-old maiden race, while hundreds more came for owner Frank Calabrese, with whom Catalano has had a volatile off-and-on relationship the last two decades or so.
With Kentucky Downs in session and the Keeneland yearling sale starting Monday in Lexington, Ky., horse trainers and their automobiles will be in continuous motion over the next couple of weeks.
Few will be busier than Mike Maker. The two-time defending champion trainer at Kentucky Downs, he makes Louisville his home base, but his Lexus SUV will be hurtling up and down Interstates 65 and 64 as he looks to further his name with current and future trainees.
