I’m a Chatterbox will be able to make the $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic after all.
The Grade 1-winning mare had been pointed for the Jan. 29 race at Sam Houston since returning from a short break following her fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, but when Fair Grounds was hit by an equine herpesvirus (EHV-1) outbreak in late December, which led to a state quarantine of the track, it seemed unlikely that she would be able to make the race.
Valadorna, a top Kentucky Oaks prospect on the strength of her encouraging three-start 2-year-old campaign, is set to make her first start of 2017 in a first-level allowance race next Friday at Fair Grounds.
Valadorna is one of six 3-year-old fillies entered to go a mile and 70 yards on the main track in the sixth race. She drew post 1 and has Florida-based Julien Leparoux, her regular pilot, named to ride.
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Tom Amoss has long played the off-the-turf game at Fair Grounds as well as any horseman here, and Amoss might have found another sweet spot in the featured sixth race Sunday.
Quijote is entered for the main track only in a third-level allowance race that is also open to $80,000 claimers and carded for 5 1/2 furlongs on turf. If the rain that was expected all weekend falls at close to the forecast volume, Sunday’s grass races figure to wind up on dirt.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Ashleyluvssugar, a winner of two Grade 2 turf stakes in 2016, will be a strong favorite to win his fifth stakes in the $250,000 California Cup Classic for statebreds at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita on Jan. 28.
Trained by Peter Eurton for the partnership of Sharon Alesia, Joe Ciaglia, and Bran Jam Racing, Ashleyluvssugar was second in the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup at Del Mar on Nov. 25 and has been trained in recent months with the Cal Cup Classic as a first target for 2017.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Ten days after being purchased privately by Ron Paolucci’s Loooch Racing in California, the multimillionaire Imperative was on the track at Gulfstream Park on Friday, working a sharp six furlongs in 1:13.46 in his final prep for the $400,000 Poseidon Stakes, which serves as a lead-in next Saturday for the $12 million Pegasus World Cup.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Tepin is scheduled to breeze Sunday at Palm Meadows as the star turf mare remains on schedule for her 6-year-old debut in the Grade 3 Endeavour on Feb. 11 at Tampa Bay Downs.
Trainer Mark Casse said a decision is forthcoming on whether the Endeavour will serve as a springboard toward a race on the March 25 Dubai World Cup card.
“She’s done so much for us already that Dubai is about the only thing left to do,” said Casse.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. was on hand Friday morning at Gulfstream as he continues to recover from a leg injury suffered in a Nov. 10 spill at Churchill Downs.
“Everything is coming along real well,” said Valdivia, who lives with his wife, Renee, and two children in nearby Hollywood.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Dale Romans is hoping the wonders of equine medicine will once again make Cherry Wine a player on the big stage.
After nailing Nyquist for second behind Exaggerator in the Preakness last May, Cherry Wine failed to hit the board in all four subsequent races. But a throat operation after his last start Nov. 19 at Churchill Downs appears to have remedied the root of the colt’s problems, said Romans.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Fans of turf racing are suffering under their umbrellas in Southern California this winter.
While much-needed rain continues to aid the environment and fill the state’s reservoirs, turf racing at Santa Anita has been a victim of the conditions. There are no turf races at Santa Anita on Saturday, and wet weather over the weekend makes turf racing doubtful for Sunday.
The last few weeks have seen persistent rain throughout the state.
“We didn’t expect this much weather,” said track senior vice president Joe Morris.
It was a solid year in 2016 for veteran trainer Wes Hawley, but it was a great year for owner Wes Hawley.
Hawley, a 53-year-old Oklahoma native, owns outright the 6-year-old mare Steel Cut, who earned $226,550 last year. He owns three-quarters of Hawaakom, who banked $310,953 during 2016 while campaigning for Hawley and his partner Stephan Smoot. That’s a half-million right there, less the other sundry and considerable purses Hawley picked up owning horses himself or in partnership, though less, of course, expenses and reinvestment.
