The Laurel Park Winter Festival has been consolidated from two days to one this year and will be held Saturday. The six stakes have traditionally been split between the Saturday and Monday of Presidents Day weekend.
The card will be anchored by the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie and the Grade 3 General George. The festival also includes four $75,000 stakes, two for 3-year-olds and two for older runners.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Classic Empire returned to training Monday for the first time since a slight injury was discovered following his disappointing performance in the Feb. 4 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park. Trainer Mark Casse expressed optimism that the problem has been addressed and “hopefully is behind us.”
Ann Arbor Eddie has outgrown California-breds over the last 60 days with wins in stakes at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita. His performance in the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday will determine whether he has progressed enough for an international trip.
If Ann Arbor Eddie runs well in the $200,000 El Camino Real Derby, for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles on Tapeta, he could run next in the $2 million United Arab Emirates Derby at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai on March 25.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Vale Dori’s four-race winning streak this winter has come at a time when the mare has been in peak form – and when two leading rivals are being prepared for comebacks.
The champions Songbird and Stellar Wind are not likely to be ready to race until April, leaving Vale Dori the dominant older female on dirt in Southern California this winter. She won her third consecutive Grade 2 race Saturday at Santa Anita in the $200,345 Santa Maria Stakes, a prep for the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Stakes at 1 1/8 miles March 18.
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.
