Trainer Jimmy Toner will equip the Grade 1 winner Time and Motion with blinkers for the first time in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Beaugay Stakes at Belmont Park.
Time and Motion went 5 for 7 last year, but in her season debut this year, she finished sixth, beaten three lengths by Dickinson, in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.
Zhukova, a Group 3-winning mare in Europe, will take on the boys in Saturday’s Grade 1, $400,000 Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park.
Zhukova, a 5-year-old mare trained by Dermot Weld, arrived in New York on May 4 and has been cantering over Belmont Park’s main track since Sunday.
Caroline Cashman, a groom who traveled here with Zhukova, said Weld “loves running horses over here.”
“He would like a crack at a Grade 1, and it’s a nice, big, galloping track, which she likes,” Cashman said.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Though he didn’t win the Kentucky Derby, finishing fifth with Practical Joke, trainer Chad Brown had a pretty spectacular weekend, winning four graded stakes and finishing second in two others.
On Saturday at Churchill Downs, Brown won the Grade 1 Humana Distaff with Paulassilverlining and the Grade 2 Distaff Turf Mile with Roca Rojo. He finished second in the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic with Beach Patrol.
The Preakness meet at Pimlico begins Thursday, but don’t blink, or you might miss it.
The season has been trimmed to 12 dates this year.
In 2015, Pimlico raced 37 days. The meet was tightened to 28 programs in 2016. The lost dates have been transferred to suburban Laurel Park, where The Stronach Group, the owner of both tracks, has made major capital improvements over the past several years.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It was a rough weekend at Churchill Downs for Wayne Catalano, and not just because his stable star, Farrell, finished last of 14 in the Kentucky Oaks.
Earlier in the week, Catalano lost his older brother. Joe Catalano, a longtime stable employee who was living in their native New Orleans, suffered an apparent heart attack and died at 63.
“We’re having a memorial Mass for him back home” on May 16, Wayne Catalano said early Monday. “Everybody liked Joe Cat. He’s really going to be missed.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Even with all the success he has enjoyed in recent years, this past Kentucky Derby weekend is one that trainer Brad Cox will never forget.
Cox won a combined four races on the Oaks and Derby cards, including three stakes: the Grade 2 Eight Belles with Benner Island, the Grade 3 Twin Spires Turf Sprint with Green Mask, and the Grade 2 American Turf with Arklow.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Dallas Stewart did it again. The 57-year-old trainer with a knack for blowing up the Churchill Downs tote board on Kentucky Derby weekend sent out three winners last week, furthering his reputation as a producer of live longshots.
Darion’s Dream ($26.20) won her career debut in a maiden-claiming race Thursday, and then Northwest Bourbon ($29.40) and Shes a True Beauty ($15.20) won on the Oaks undercard.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Divisidero and Beach Patrol, the one-two finishers in the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on Saturday at Churchill Downs, could be rematched five weeks hence in the Grade 1, $1 million Manhattan on the June 10 Belmont Stakes undercard.
ARCADIA, Calif. – It was not long after Abel Tasman won the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs last Friday that trainer Simon Callaghan’s cellphone began to jingle with text messages.
“They were all very supportive,” Callaghan recalled on Sunday.
The messages came from friends reaching out to Callaghan, the original trainer of Abel Tasman. The filly was transferred to trainer Bob Baffert in early March after a dispute arose regarding the silks that jockey Joe Talamo wore for Abel Tasman’s 2017 debut in the Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes at Santa Anita on March 4.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Union Strike, a close second in the Grade 2 Eight Belles Stakes at Churchill Downs last Friday, will be pointed for the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park on June 10.
The $700,000 Acorn Stakes is run at a mile around one turn and is for 3-year-old fillies.
“I think the one turn, with the big turns, will be perfect for her,” owner and trainer Mick Ruis said on Sunday.
