OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With the New York graded turf stakes complete for the year, trainers Jimmy Toner and Chad Brown will soon take their show on the road, sending horses to Southern California for upcoming graded grass events.
Toner will ship Time and Motion and Defiant Honor this Sunday to Del Mar, where they will run in the Grade 1 Matriarch on Dec. 4 and Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes on Nov. 26, respectively.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Takaful, an impressive eight-length debut winner at Belmont on Oct. 29, is expected to make his next start in the Grade 2, $300,000 Remsen at Aqueduct on Nov. 26, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said.
“We’re stuck – nowhere else to go, “ McLaughlin said. “We’re heading that way. We wish we could have run him a month earlier and run in the Nashua.”
In his debut, Takaful ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.82, which was 2.10 seconds faster than Lead Astray ran in winning the other division of the same maiden race.
STICKNEY, Ill. – Joel Berndt’s first year as a trainer came in 1991. His first graded-stakes win came Saturday, when Hay Dakota was up by a neck at odds of 29-1 in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf at Churchill Downs.
Berndt said Sunday that Hay Dakota, who got an 86 Beyer for his fourth win, could start next at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 3 in the $125,000 Claiming Crown Emerald. Hay Dakota qualifies for that starter-allowance race because he ran in a $20,000 maiden claimer in June at Canterbury Park.
Pat On the Back will be stepping outside of the New York-bred ranks for the first time in his career Saturday in the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot. He will be seeking his third stakes win after victories in the $250,000 Sleepy Hollow last month at Belmont Park and the $120,000 Aspirant in September at Finger Lakes.
STICKNEY, Ill. – Mongolian Saturday is getting a brief rest at Locust Grove Farm in Kentucky following his ninth-place finish in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.
Mongolian Saturday won the race when it was contested over 5 1/2 furlongs at Keeneland in 2015, but faded steadily after pressing pacesetter Obviously, the eventual winner, going 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course.
“They went very, very fast in the race,” trainer Enebish Ganbat said.
STICKNEY, Ill. – The Pizza Man’s trip to Southern California this month is not developing as planned, and the relocation of his trainer Roger Brueggemann’s stable to there has also been put on hold.
The Pizza Man, who worked a half-mile at Hawthorne on Nov. 9 in 49.40 seconds, has for several weeks been pointed to the Hollywood Turf Cup on Nov. 25 at Del Mar, a race he decisively won in 2015. His connections, Brueggemann and owner Midwest Thoroughbreds, still would like to run in the race, but transportation has become an issue.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Approximately 20 horses worked over the Gulfstream Park main track on a quiet Monday morning while saving the best for last, Grade 2 winner Strike Charmer, who breezed an easy half-mile in 50.53 seconds with trainer Mark Hennig looking on.
Strike Charmer is one of a half-dozen horses Hennig recently shipped to Florida from his Belmont Park base, the first wave of what will wind up being a string of 20-25 runners for the winter Championship Meet, which begins Dec. 3.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With one eye on his latest star Not This Time, trainer Dale Romans is busy getting the rest of his sizable stable ready for final starts of the Churchill Downs fall meet before leaving for the long winter in Florida.
Romans said he will enter Cherry Wine – one of the few holdovers from the 2016 Triple Crown series – in a Churchill race “before too long.” Cherry Wine has regrouped since three subpar races following his runner-up finish in the May 21 Preakness.
Technically, last Saturday’s Grade 3 Red Smith Handicap was the last graded turf stakes of the year on this circuit. But Saturday’s ungraded $150,000 Artie Schiller Stakes is certainly coming up like a graded event.
Heart to Heart, a seven-time graded stakes winner and earner of more than $930,000, heads what is expected to be a large field for the second running of this one-mile turf race.
