LEXINGTON, Ky. – Mark Casse won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes last year with one superstar turf mare – and he’ll be trying to deny another one Saturday.
Casse won the 2016 Jenny Wiley with Tepin and now will send out Catch a Glimpse to try to upset Lady Eli, who figures as an odds-on favorite in the 29th running of the $350,000 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.
A year ago this Saturday, apprentice rider Ashley Castrenze won at Tampa Bay Downs with her first mount. On Friday, in the seventh race at Laurel Park, she will restart her career following a six-month injury-related layoff.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The fierce college rivalry between the Louisville Cardinals and Kentucky Wildcats has made its way into Thoroughbred nomenclature.
In a tongue-in-cheek takeoff borrowing from the Repole Stable star Notacatbutallama, 22-year-old trainer Liam Benson has given one of his unraced 2-year-olds this name: Notacatbutacard.
“I always loved that New York-bred Notacatbutallama, and it’s a great dig at UK, too,” said Benson, a graduate of the equine business program at Louisville.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Lynn Whiting, who 25 years ago this May celebrated the pinnacle of a lifetime in racing by winning the 1992 Kentucky Derby with 17-1 shot Lil E. Tee, is undergoing physical therapy after spending six weeks in a Louisville, Ky., hospital following a stroke and hopes to be back working at his Churchill Downs barn within a week or so.
Whiting, 77, said by phone Wednesday with his typical wry humor that he is “getting along all right,” but, “I don’t have any blue ribbons hanging off me just yet. I kind of lost my edge for a little bit there.”
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Champion and highweight Stellar Wind drew post 3 in a field of six fillies and mares for the Grade 1, $600,000 Apple Blossom Handicap, to be run Friday at Oaklawn. Entries for the 1 1/16-mile race were taken Tuesday.
The Apple Blossom is part of the Racing Festival of the South, a series of seven stakes worth a total of $3.45 million run over the final three dates of the meet, which closes Saturday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Midnight Storm, the runner-up in last month’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, will target the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap on Saturday. Trainer Phil D’Amato said the horse emerged from a work last Friday in excellent condition and was scheduled to fly from Southern California to Arkansas on Tuesday.
“He just hasn’t missed a beat,” D’Amato said Monday. “He’s training so well right now. He’s just full of himself. It’s all systems go, is basically what he’s telling me, so we’re going to head on out.”
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Blinkers off worked well for Irap last weekend in the Blue Grass Stakes, and his trainer, Doug O’Neill, hopes the same equipment change will benefit Rockin Rudy when the promising 3-year-old runs Saturday in the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.
The race closes out the meet at Oaklawn Park and offers 170 eligibility points for the Kentucky Derby, to be divided among the first four finishers on a scale of 100-40-20-10.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With the connections of so many 3-year-olds with plenty of eligibility points clamoring to make the field for the May 6 Kentucky Derby, the Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington Stakes on Saturday will not produce a Derby starter.
The 1 1/16-mile Lexington is worth 17 points, including 10 to the winner, but none of the projected starters will have enough points to make the Derby. Probables include Convict Pike, No Dozing, Resiliency, Tiz a Slam, and West Coast.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The last two Grade 1 races of the 15-day spring meet will be run this week on the turf course, with the $300,000 Maker’s 46 Mile set for Friday and the $350,000 Jenny Wiley anchoring a slate of four Saturday stakes.
Lady Eli, the star turf mare trained by Chad Brown, will make her 5-year-old debut in the 1 1/16-mile Jenny Wiley, which shapes up as perhaps the best race of the meet. Other probable starters include Catch a Glimpse, Time and Motion, and Dickinson.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Nobody likes to lose, but Buff Bradley couldn’t be blamed for leaving Keeneland on Sunday with a good feeling, even after his stable star, Divisidero, lost by a nose to Projected in a turf allowance.
“This kind of effort was exactly what we were looking for,” said Bradley, who trains Divisidero for the Gunpowder Farms of Tom Keithley.
