ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Casse is probably going to win the 165th running of the $1 million King’s Plate, North America’s oldest annually run stakes, on Aug. 17 at Woodbine. The question is which one of his star 3-year-olds will prevail in the 1 1/4-mile Tapeta route for Canadian-breds?
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Seize the Grey, the Preakness winner who finished seventh in the Belmont Stakes, worked five furlongs in 59.22 seconds over the Oklahoma training track on Tuesday.
It was the third work for Seize the Grey since the Belmont Stakes, but first in Saratoga.
“Wonderful, by himself, impressive,” trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Wednesday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Rich Strike, the 2022 Kentucky Derby winner, had his first official work for trainer Bill Mott on Tuesday going three furlongs in 39.60 seconds over the Oklahoma training track.
Mott said it wasn’t necessarily designed to be Rich Strike’s first publicly timed work.
“We let him gallop-out a little bit, we made time, so I said put it in,” Mott said. “He’s going great.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The connections of Moira certainly did not choose an easy spot to bring Canada’s Horse of the Year back from an eight-month layoff when they entered her in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Diana Stakes at Saratoga.
“You’re not lying there,” trainer Kevin Attard said. “That’s what you expect when you run in Grade 1s. It’s a quality field, nothing to be surprised about I guess.”
The Diana drew a field of 10, four of whom are Grade 1 winners.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The much anticipated rematch between Mentee and Colloquial, that many had hoped would take place as soon as Saturday’s Grade 3 Sanford Stakes, will have to wait for a while.
Trainer George Weaver said earlier this week that he’s had to take Colloquial out of training for some minor issues, with the hope of having him back to the track by the end of August.
Santa Anita Park will distribute $5.1 million in stakes purses during its autumn meet under a revamped stakes schedule that includes the establishment of the California Crown series of races, according to a stakes schedule released by the track on Tuesday.
Jose Ortiz hopes to carry the momentum of a highly successful Churchill Downs meet into Saratoga where he hopes to contend for a fourth riding title when the meet opens Thursday.
“I’m competitive, the goal would be leading rider or at least win as many races as I can,” Ortiz said during a rare 2024 visit to Aqueduct.
Nutella Fella, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner, who ran third in his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens last month, is sidelined again due to an ankle issue, trainer Gary Contessa said Sunday.
Contessa said Nutella Fella had some filling in his left hind ankle, the same ankle he injured last fall which forced him to miss the remainder of the year following his upset Hopeful score. A subsequent PET scan of the area showed some bone bruising in his left hind leg.
Trainer Linda Rice won the first race of the 2023 Saratoga meet and the last, and a whole bunch of races in between, which enabled her to tie Chad Brown for the most wins at the meet with 35. It was the second time Rice had won or shared the Saratoga crown, having done so outright in 2009.
Rice is not going to Saratoga this week confident she can contend again this summer.
Whit Beckman will have a 13-horse string at Saratoga this summer, one that includes the 3-year-old Honor Marie, who is targeting the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 24.
Honor Marie finished second in the Louisiana Derby, which helped get him into the Kentucky Derby, where he finished eighth. Most recently, he finished fourth in the Belmont Stakes here in June. Honor Marie returned to the work tab at Churchill Downs on Saturday, breezing a half-mile in 50.60 seconds.
