ELMONT, N.Y. – The dominance of California-based horses here recently was not restricted to Belmont Stakes weekend.
Giant Expectations, a New York-bred based in Southern California, shipped to New York a few weeks ago and won two races in a span of 11 days for trainer Peter Eurton. On May 29, Giant Expectations won a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race by 9 3/4 lengths. On June 8, he won a statebred first-level allowance at a mile by 2 1/2 lengths, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 90.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Joking, the Grade 1 Vosburgh winner who got sick after arriving in Southern California last fall for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, has returned to training at Belmont Park and is being pointed for a late-summer/fall campaign, said Charlton Baker, the horse’s owner and trainer.
Joking started jogging about two weeks ago and will begin galloping in a week or so. Baker said Joking could return to the work tab by the end of June.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The last time Shaman Ghost and Dolphus came charging down the stretch together was in the Pimlico Special, where Shaman Ghost edged his stablemate by a neck in the Grade 3, $300,000 race.
On Thursday morning at Belmont Park, Shaman Ghost and Dolphus came charging down the stretch together on even terms while working for their next engagements.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The Poker is one of the few turf stakes at Belmont Park that isn’t on trainer Chad Brown’s résumé. On Sunday, he’ll have a better than 50 percent chance to change that when he sends out half the field in the Grade 3, $300,000 Poker at a mile over the Widener turf course.
Brown doesn’t just send out three of the six runners for the turf, he has the probable top two choices in Projected and Catapult. Those two ran second and fourth behind World Approval in the Grade 2 Dixie at Pimlico on May 20.
Trainer Dallas Stewart threw a curveball to the connections of the eight other fillies and mares in the Fleur de Lis Handicap by entering his stable star, Forever Unbridled, in the Grade 2 race on the Foster undercard Saturday night. Stewart initially had said he intended to have Forever Unbridled make her seasonal debut in the Chicago Handicap here June 24.
“This looked like a good spot to get started back,” Stewart said after entries were drawn Wednesday. “It’s where she needs to run.”
Churchill Downs officials recently invited Charlie LoPresti to bring Wise Dan back here to be paraded before the race named in the gelding’s honor Saturday night, but LoPresti had to decline.
“He got a little wound up when we did it last year, and I don’t want him to throw a fit,” said LoPresti. “He’s just running around on 20 acres [at Forest Lane Farm in Athens, Ky.] with his brother [Successful Dan] these days, looking like seven and a half million dollars. We’ll just let him be.”
Saturday night will mark the 42nd time Churchill Downs has conducted racing under lights and the sixth time the Foster has been run at night. The first Foster winner under the lights was Ron the Greek in 2012.
Attendance for the 2016 Foster, won by Bradester, was 19,034, with all-sources handle of $7,150,204. The highest attendance for a Foster Night was set two years ago, when 28,968 turned out to see American Pharoah paraded just a week after winning the Triple Crown. Handle that night was nearly $8.1 million.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Friday’s Rainbow 6 sequence begins with the fourth event on the nine-race program and consists of four main-track races plus a pair scheduled for the turf, including a one-mile starter optional claimer that drew a quality field of eight (plus main-track-only entrant Concealedwithakiss). The lineup includes several stakes-tested fillies and is led by King’s Ghost, Temple Fur, and Royal Jewely.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – There will be a pair of stakes races on Saturday’s card, the $100,000 Soldier’s Dancer and its filly-and-mare counterpart, the $100,000 Ginger Punch, but they will be overshadowed by the mandatory payout of the large Rainbow 6 jackpot, which if it is not hit on Thursday or Friday will approach $1 million when the day begins.
