OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Michael Dini, who wintered at Tampa Bay Downs and summers at Delaware Park, will have runners for each of the two turf stakes that highlight closing weekend of the Aqueduct spring meet.
In Saturday’s $100,000 Woodhaven Stakes for 3-year-olds, Dini will send out Bird’s Eye View. In Sunday’s $100,000 Memories of Silver Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, Dini will saddle Dynatail.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Having won three races for 2-year-olds at Keeneland so far this spring, trainer Wesley Ward now has his sights set on New York, which runs its first juvenile races of the year this week at Aqueduct.
On Wednesday, Ward has two of the six entrants in a 4 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies. On Thursday, Ward sends out Magnanimus Man in a 4 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-old males.
The field for the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic was still coming together Monday, with nine likely starters, but owner Ron Paolucci’s plans are set. He is going to run Imperative, War Story, and Cautious Giant.
This will be Imperative’s fourth straight appearance in the Classic. He scored a 26-1 upset in 2014 over Game On Dude and Moreno. He was second to Moreno in 2015 and finished fourth behind Stanford last year.
Lone Star Park near Dallas opens its 20th season Thursday night with the $50,000 Premiere Stakes. It is carded as the first race of the meet, as has been the tradition since I Are Sharp won the inaugural running on April 17, 1997.
Lone Star will race 50 dates through July 30. The meet will pay tribute to its history with several key events. One of its biggest races, the Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile on May 7, has been renamed the Steve Sexton Mile in honor of a central member of the track’s original management team who died in December.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The front-loaded spring meet has left the Keeneland stakes cupboard relatively bare. Thirteen stakes were run during the first seven days of the meet, but just three will be held over the ensuing eight days: the Grade 3 Doubledogdare on Friday, the Grade 2 Elkhorn on Saturday, and the Grade 3 Bewitch on closing day, April 28.
Unbridled Mo, trained by Todd Pletcher, is among the fillies and mares listed as likely for the 1 1/16-mile Doubledogdare, for which entries were to be drawn Tuesday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – After Lady Aurelia prevailed Saturday in the Giant’s Causeway Stakes, she had racing historians wondering about the last time a 3-year-old had defeated older rivals so early in the year in a North American stakes of consequence.
“The only time I know of was when we won the Giant’s Causeway with Holiday Kitten [in 2011],” said Wesley Ward, who trains Lady Aurelia for Stonestreet Stables and partners. “You don’t see it happen because people usually don’t want to try it.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – What Kiaran McLaughlin accomplished Saturday can best be appreciated through the prism of time.
McLaughlin won with all four of his starters at Keeneland, including in a pair of graded stakes races that ended with a dramatic victory by Dickinson in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes. All four winners are homebreds owned by the Godolphin Racing of Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Union Strike, the winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante last September and the minor Santa Paula Stakes on April 9, will start in the Grade 2 Eight Belles Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs on May 5, owner and trainer Mick Ruis said.
The $200,000 Eight Belles Stakes is run at seven furlongs, the same distance as the Del Mar Debutante.
“We like going seven-eighths,” Ruis said. “We’ll stretch her out later.”
ARCADIA, Calif. - Goodyearforroses, a three-time stakes winner at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, finished fifth in her Grade 1 debut in the $350,000 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday. It will not be long before the 5-year-old mare starts in a similar race.
Trainer Richard Baltas said Sunday Goodyearforroses will be considered for the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes, a $300,000 race at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita on May 27.
“I like the six weeks,” Baltas said.
ARCADIA, Calif. - By several standards, Follow Me Crev ran the best race of his career when third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 11.
It was his best finish in a graded stakes. He earned $85,000, the biggest payday of his career, and was given a Beyer Speed Figure of 101, another career best in his 20 starts.
Follow Me Crev did all that despite not being in peak condition, trainer Vladimir Cerin said. The Santa Anita Handicap was Follow Me Crev’s second start of the year, preceded by a win in an optional claimer Feb. 20.
