ARCADIA, Calif. – Songbird rolled through a sharp half-mile workout Tuesday morning at Santa Anita, a day before she ships to Belmont Park for the first start of her 4-year-old campaign on Saturday in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps.
Working by herself at 6:45 a.m., Songbird, with jockey Mike Smith, broke off at the half-mile, went back-to-back quarter-miles in 23.20, and was given an official work time of 46.40. She galloped out five furlongs in 58.80, according to Santa Anita clockers.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The first horse in the first race Thursday, the first day of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, is trained by Chad Brown. Pure chance led to that occurrence, but it’s a fitting start to the racing week.
Brown and the colt’s owners are holding Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing out of the Belmont Stakes. Brown’s starter in the Belmont, Twisted Tom, will be a longshot. But the stable is set up for a potentially awesome week in Belmont’s turf stakes.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The Belmont Stakes won’t have the Kentucky Derby winner, nor the Preakness winner, but it won’t have a shortage of entries, with a bulky field 13 set to contest the last and longest leg of the Triple Crown on Saturday here at Belmont Park.
Gormley, the Santa Anita Derby winner who was ninth in the Kentucky Derby, was officially put in the race Monday, according to Dottie Ingordo-Shirreffs, the wife of trainer John Shirreffs and the racing manager for owners Jerry and Ann Moss.
“He deserves the opportunity,” she said early Monday evening.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The top horse in the world will make his next start at the premier summer meet in California and in a race sponsored in part by TVG. That is all but certain.
But whether Arrogate returns July 22 on opening weekend of the Del Mar summer meet or Aug. 19 in the TVG Pacific Classic at Del Mar depends on variables including how Arrogate responds when he returns to serious training beginning Tuesday at Santa Anita.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown has won four of the last five – and three consecutive – runnings of the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes at 1 1/4 miles over the Belmont turf.
Brown likely will seek another victory in the $1 million race with the uncoupled trio of Time Test, Beach Patrol, and Wake Forest. They are among what is expected to be a 10-horse field for the race when entries are drawn Wednesday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The defection of Connect due to injury from the Grade 1, $1.2 million Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park on Saturday leaves the one-turn-mile race seemingly so wide open that even identifying the favorite could be difficult.
A field of 12 is expected to be entered Wednesday in the Met Mile.
It was raining Monday morning in south Florida, so trainer Jerry Bozzo decided to give himself the day off. At 96, and after winning a race Saturday at Gulfstream Park, Bozzo certainly has earned the right to sleep in occasionally.
Bozzo became the oldest trainer in North America to saddle the winner of a Thoroughbred flat race when his Cotton Tooyah won Saturday’s second race at Gulfstream Park at 9-5 odds. In May 2015, he became the oldest trainer to saddle a stakes winner when his homebred Flutterby won the Sea Lily at Gulfstream Park.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Making his first start since last October’s Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland, Tower of Texas got up in time to win Saturday’s Grade 2 Connaught Cup over seven furlongs on turf under leading rider Eurico Da Silva. He will now proceed to the Grade 2, $175,000 King Edward Stakes over one mile on turf on the Queen’s Plate card here July 2.
Trainer Roger Attfield said he was pleased with Tower of Texas’s performance off the layoff.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The $500,000 Woodbine Oaks and the $125,000 Plate Trial, two key preps for the $1 million Queen’s Plate, will be run Sunday over 1 1/8 miles on Woodbine’s Tapeta. Fields for both were becoming clear following last Sunday’s training session.
Among the probables for the Woodbine Oaks are 11 Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies led by Fury Stakes winner Enstone, who will look to give trainer Mark Casse his fourth Woodbine Oaks victory. Enstone enters off a runner-up finish to Grizzel in the Grade 3 Selene Stakes on May 21.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chris Davis sent out his first winner on the Kentucky circuit when Student Body, a 3-year-old Colonel John filly owned by Gary Broad, prevailed at first asking in the final race Saturday at a $74.60 win mutuel.
Davis, 28, is the son of Chicago-based trainer Liane Davis. He worked as an assistant for Mike Stidham for more than five years in Chicago, New Orleans, and California before going out on his own last fall. He now has a 15-horse stable at Keeneland.
