ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Peter Miller may send four recent Santa Anita winners to Churchill Downs for major stakes May 5-6. Miller said on Friday that Conquest Farenheit, Richard’s Boy, Solid Wager, and Storm the Hill may travel there.
Conquest Farenheit, the winner of the Baffle and Pasadena stakes in consecutive starts at Santa Anita this year, is a candidate for the Grade 2 American Turf Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles on May 6.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Pacific Heat will have been away from the races for 53 weeks when she starts in an optional claimer for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Santa Anita on Sunday.
Trainer Peter Eurton considers the optional claimer the perfect comeback for Pacific Heat, who could start in the $100,000 Fran’s Valentine Stakes for California-bred fillies and mares at a mile on turf May 21.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Always Dreaming, the potential favorite for the Kentucky Derby, turned in the first of his three scheduled breezes leading up to the big event, going an easy half-mile in 49.90 seconds with jockey John Velazquez aboard shortly after dawn Friday at Palm Beach Downs.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Todd Pletcher said All Included, who won the Grade 3 Appleton after finishing second in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap, will make his next start in the Grade 3 Miami Mile here April 29.
“He seems to like Gulfstream, so that seems like the most logical spot,” Pletcher said.
Pletcher breezed several notable horses Friday at Palm Beach Downs, including Destin and Syndergaard.
Lone Star Park near Dallas has renamed one of its premier races, the Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile, for the late racing executive Steve Sexton.
Sexton, who was part of the track’s original management team, died in December after battling brain cancer. He was 57.
The Steve Sexton Mile for 3-year-olds and up will be run May 7. It will serve as a platform to raise awareness for a cause important to Sexton, putting underprivileged youth through college. Toward that end, the family is creating the Steven P. Sexton Foundation.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sean Perl will be leaving his position as assistant racing secretary at the New York Racing Association at the end of next week. Perl held the position for 2 1/2 years.
Perl, 30, will be launching his own bloodstock business starting with the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. auction of 2-year-olds from April 25-28.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Last Saturday, Michelle Nevin watched with pride as her former charge Paulassilverlining won the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland. A few hours earlier, Nevin’s Grade 1-winning mare By the Moon returned to the work tab with a half-mile move in 50.88 seconds.
The work was the first for By the Moon since she was beaten a neck by High Ridge Road in the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel Park on Feb. 18. Nevin said she backed off By the Moon after that race and gave the filly a break.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Yorkiepoo Princess bled while finishing eighth in the Grade 2 Gazelle Stakes last Saturday at Aqueduct, a problem trainer Eddie Barker said can be rectified, which is why he still plans on running the filly in the Grade 1, $1 million Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 5.
Barker said that owner Danny Chen paid the $1,500 late-nomination fee to make Yorkiepoo Princess eligible for the Oaks. Yorkiepoo Princess earned 50 qualifying points toward the Oaks for her victory in the listed Busher Stakes on Feb. 25.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Saturday’s 11-race card at Gulfstream Park features a $43,000 optional-claiming/allowance race at six furlongs that lured a field of seven older horses led by Easy to Say, who is expected to be favored over a well-matched group that includes Mach My Day, The Son Wind, and Call to Honor.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The 2016-17 Gulfstream Park championship meeting got off to a fast start and never looked back, with the total handle of $867 million for the 87-day session smashing the old mark of $807 million set the previous winter.
