ARCADIA, Calif. – Early Saturday morning, trainer Carla Gaines was awake and listening to light rain fall at her home not far from Santa Anita. Bolo, her multiple stakes winner on turf, was less than 12 hours from a start in Saturday’s Grade 2 Arcadia Stakes, and the weather made Gaines cross.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I heard it rain, and said, ‘Stop! Okay?’ I was so worried about the turf.”
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Weast Hill, who on Thursday improved his Oaklawn Park record to 7 for 7 by winning an allowance, will be honored as the Arkansas Thoroughbred Breeders’ & Horsemen’s Association’s 2016 Horse of the Year during a March 31 banquet, according to an official with the organization. Weast Hill was a multiple stakes winner last year at Oaklawn.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Geovanni Franco has made a quick ascent up the Oaklawn Park standings during the first month of the meet. He ranked second in both wins and earnings through Thursday, boosted by a Feb. 4 triple that included the $125,000 King Cotton Stakes aboard Storm Advisory.
Franco is hitting at a 27 percent win clip, which leads all riders with 10 or more starts at the meet. He has won 17 races from 63 starts for mount earnings of $629,873, already surpassing his totals from the 2016 Oaklawn meet, where he went 16 for 120 in his first meet in Hot Springs.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Syndergaard, the talented New York-bred stakes winner who was beaten a nose by Practical Joke in the Grade 1 Champagne last fall at Belmont Park, most likely will be kept in one-turn races, trainer Todd Pletcher said Thursday.
Syndergaard worked three furlongs in 38.90 seconds on Feb. 3 at Stonestreet Farm, where he has spent the last few months. It was his first breeze since he finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita last November.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jose Ortiz rode Super Surprise to victory in the Biogio’s Rose Stakes last Sunday. It will be his last mount in New York for a while.
Ortiz had previously announced his intention to ride at Gulfstream Park for the month of March, when Aqueduct’s schedule cuts back to three days a week. However, Ortiz is basically riding in Florida full time now. He won a race on both Wednesday and Thursday there and was scheduled to ride there Friday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Super Surprise, the 2 1/2-length winner of last Sunday’s Biogio’s Rose Stakes at Aqueduct, has been retired from racing. She will be bred to Uncle Mo, according to trainer Todd Pletcher.
Pletcher said that owner Mike Repole wasn’t going to keep Super Surprise in training the entire year, and there was not a suitable graded opportunity worth pursuing before sending her to the breeding shed.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Royal Posse’s futility over Aqueduct’s inner track continued when he stumbled badly at the start of last month’s Jazil Stakes and finished fourth as the 6-5 favorite. It not only ended a four-race winning streak but made him 0 for 7 over the inner track.
His connections are now trying to decide whether to give him another shot over the inner in the $125,000 Stymie Stakes on March 12 or opt for a change of venue. He is nominated to the $75,000 John B. Campbell Stakes at Laurel next Saturday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Stellar Wind, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2015, is progressing toward her 5-year-old debut. On Friday at Santa Anita, Stellar Wind worked a half-mile in 48.60 seconds.
Trained by John Sadler for Pete and Kosta Hronis, Stellar Wind had the first workout of her comeback Feb. 4, three furlongs in 36.80 seconds.
“We’re getting in our foundation works,” Sadler said. “It’s going pretty smoothly.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens is planning a mid-March return to race riding after undergoing a hip-replacement operation in late December.
Stevens said on Thursday that he has received doctor’s clearance to resume exercising horses in early March to prepare for a comeback. He said he is working on fitness by riding a stationary bike and an Equicizer, which mimics the mechanics of race riding.
“The doctor was happy with everything,” he said. “He doesn’t want me to do anything where I fall on the hip for the next three weeks.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Mario Gutierrez, best known for winning the Kentucky Derby twice, won the 1,000th race of his career in North America on Hot Paris Night in Thursday’s eighth race at Santa Anita.
Gutierrez earned the milestone. He urged Hot Paris Night through the final quarter-mile of a $20,000 claiming race for maidens at a mile to win by a neck over 8-1 Woodstock Memory.
