ELMONT, N.Y. – Timeline, unbeaten in two starts, steps into stakes company for the first time when he heads a field of six entered for Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes, typically a prep for the Belmont Stakes.
Timeline, a son of Hard Spun trained by Chad Brown, won a seven-furlong maiden race at Gulfstream and then captured a first-level allowance by 13 1/2 lengths in the slop going a one-turn mile at Aqueduct. Timeline will break from post 2 under Javier Castellano.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Barclay Tagg will be watching the weather intently over the next few days as he prepares Highland Sky for Saturday’s Grade 1, $400,000 Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park.
Tagg has Highland Sky ready to run, but he doesn’t want to run the colt over soft ground. Tagg scratched Highland Sky from last Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Fort Marcy because the turf came up soft. Rain is again in the forecast for Saturday after dry conditions prevailed for most of this week.
Shaman Ghost, the Santa Anita Handicap winner, drilled five furlongs in 59.07 over the Belmont Park training track Wednesday morning in preparation for his start in the $300,000 Pimlico Special on May 19.
Shaman Ghost went in company with Flying Bullet, a 4-year-old maiden winner. Shaman Ghost went in splits of 12.37 seconds, 23.82, 35.33 and got his last quarter in 23.74 seconds. He pulled away from Flying Bullet by five lengths at the wire and then galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.29.
El Areeb, the winner of the Jerome and Withers stakes at Aqueduct this season before injuring his right knee in a March 30 workout, has been sent to a farm in Monkton, Md., to continue his rehab, according to trainer Cal Lynch.
Dr. Dean Richardson of the New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania removed a chip and cleaned some debris out of El Areeb’s knee, Lynch said.
“The chip was very mild, and the surgery went well,” Lynch said. “He should come back from this just fine.”
Miss Sky Warrior, who had her five-race win streak snapped when she finished eighth in the Kentucky Oaks, is being given a farm vacation and will rejoin trainer Kelly Breen’s Monmouth Park stable this summer.
Miss Sky Warrior got caught up in a speed duel with 6-5 Oaks favorite Paradise Woods over the sloppy track, going in 22.79 and 46.24 seconds. Miss Sky Warrior put Paradise Woods away entering the stretch but tired from her early efforts and was beaten 11 lengths by Abel Tasman, who rallied from last in the 14-horse field.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Kimbear and American Anthem, both well beaten in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 8, are expected for Saturday’s Grade 3 Laz Barrera Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs.
Neither Kimbear, who was sixth in the Santa Anita Derby, nor American Anthem, who finished 12th, has won a stakes.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Leading jockey Rafael Bejarano has dropped an appeal of a three-day suspension issued earlier this year, according to a ruling issued by track stewards last weekend.
Bejarano, the leading rider at the spring-summer meeting at Santa Anita through Sunday, will not ride Friday through Sunday this week. He is eligible to ride the Grade 3 Laz Barrera Stakes on Saturday since graded stakes are exempt from routine suspensions.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Paradise Woods, who finished 11th as the 6-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs last Friday, will undergo a nuclear scan to check on her physical condition.
Trainer Richard Mandella emphasized on Wednesday that the scan is precautionary. Paradise Woods was flown from Kentucky to California this week.
“She came home in good shape,” he said. “We’ll do a nuclear scan because she ran such a bad race. She looks good. We don’t see anything.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – The unraced juvenile colts Argosy Fleet and Runaway Ghost arrived at Santa Anita this spring from Florida and New Mexico, respectively, and will run Friday in the year’s first 2-year-old maiden race for open company at Santa Anita. Two California-bred maiden races were held last weekend.
Argosy Fleet and Runaway Ghost are part of a full field of eight going 4 1/2 furlongs in Friday’s second race. Both have made fans of their trainers.
Antonio Gallardo has won an extraordinary number of races over the past several years. He was second only to Jose Ortiz in 2016 with 332 wins and the prior year was the runner-up to Javier Castellano with 320 victories.
But things have been different this year for Gallardo, who has won only 20 races coming into opening day of the Monmouth Park season.
