ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita officials hope to add a day of racing in the coming months as a makeup for canceling Thursday’s program because of wet conditions.
Track senior vice president Joe Morris said on Friday that the track is more likely to add a full day rather than add races to existing programs to compensate for the eight lost races.
“I want to make that day up,” Morris said. “We’ll look at both options, but I’d like the day back. We’ve got until July 4 to find an opportunity.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – All Included, who finished third in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap last February, returns from a 9 1/2-month layoff and will be eligible to be claimed for $62,500 when going postward as the likely favorite in Sunday’s $49,000 main event, carded at 7 1/2 furlongs on the grass under allowance and optional-claiming conditions.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – At 95, trainer Jerry Bozzo no longer visits the barn every morning. But he was on hand Friday morning, attending to business and eager to answer all questions pertaining to the queen of his stable, the multiple stakes-winning speedster Flutterby, who will launch her 6-year-old campaign next Saturday in the $150,000 Sunshine Millions Distaff.
“I only have five horses now, so I don’t feel the need to be here every day,” said Bozzo, a World War II veteran. “But I still make it out here periodically, and I still have my finger on the pulse here at the barn.”
With a short field likely for the Silverbulletday and the quarantine situation compromising the chances of filling a first-level allowance race, there was speculation that Valadorna, most recently second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, also may be entered in the Silverbulletday. But trainer Mark Casse said Thursday that Valadorna, as he had planned, would pass on the Jan. 21 race.
“She’s just not quite ready,” Casse said. “We’re going to wait.”
Valadorna, whose lone win came in a Keeneland maiden race, has worked twice since arriving at Fair Grounds.
Entries for the six stakes races Jan. 21 at Fair Grounds were to be taken Friday, and track officials remained confident that despite the equine herpesvirus outbreak at the track that began late last month, there would be sufficient horses to fill them.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While trainer Kelly Breen prepares Tempted and Demoiselle stakes winner Miss Sky Warrior for her 3-year-old debut, he will seek another New York stakes victory with a young filly when he runs Frank’s Folly in Sunday’s $100,000 Busanda Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.
Frank’s Folly, a daughter of Mineshaft, ships up from Gulfstream following an off-the-turf maiden win going 1 1/16 miles on Dec. 11.
“It was a matter of getting her out of Florida and making sure she goes two turns,” Breen said, adding that the distance “was the key to her success.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – It would not have surprised anybody if the connections of Diversify had opted to run him in Saturday’s $125,000 Jazil Stakes. After three dominant wins to begin his career, the 4-year-old New York-bred gelding certainly looks stakes-caliber.
But they opted to take incremental steps with Diversify, who is running Saturday at Aqueduct but in a first-level, open-company allowance race at a mile and 70 yards in the race immediately following the Jazil.
Arrogate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5, continues to train for the $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 28 despite days of rain in the last week in Southern California.
Trainer Bob Baffert said on Thursday that he intends to work Arrogate this weekend and that the 4-year-old colt remains on schedule.
“We’re just training day to day,” Baffert said. “We’ll get a breeze in.”
Arrogate was among several leading horses to work before and between races last Sunday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Oaklawn Park meet that opens Friday will again be defined by the track’s outstanding 3-year-old program, rising purse structure, large crowds, and rabid claiming activity. But it also will be a meet of transition.
Eric Jackson, Oaklawn’s general manager since 1987 who along with track owner Charles Cella has guided Oaklawn through its most significant growth period, will at some point this season hand the baton to Wayne Smith. Oaklawn also will have a new voice. Vic Stauffer is set to become just the sixth announcer in the 113-year history of the track.
