DEL MAR, Calif. – While the focus among 2-year-olds on Saturday’s card at Del Mar will be on the featured Bob Hope Stakes, there are a number of promising maidens in two 6 1/2-furlong races. The racing office was forced to split the race into two divisions because 17 horses entered.
Eight are in race 3, nine are in race 7, and both feature a mix of horses who showed promise before brief vacations, or first-time starters who have trained well.
Family Tree, the winner of the Grade 2 Indiana Oaks, and Land Over Sea, the runner-up in the Kentucky Oaks, were among 10 horses entered in the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks. The 1 1/16-mile race will anchor the Land of Enchantment Day card next Wednesday at Zia, which is located in Hobbs, N.M.
The Zia Park Oaks will go as the 10th race, with a scheduled post of 4:15 p.m. Mountain. Others set to start include Ready to Confess, the runner-up behind Family Tree in the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks, Victress, and Coniah.
Delta Downs has been something of a hot spot for trainer Mark Casse through the years. Tepin won the first stakes race of her career in the track’s Grade 3 Princess in 2013, and Turf War dead-heated for the win in its signature event, the Grade 3, $1 million Jackpot, in 2007.
There have been other Delta stakes wins for the barn, too, and Casse will attempt to add to his numbers Saturday when he sends out Thirstforlife and Our Stormin Norman in the Jackpot.
Magic Mark, winner of the Harry Brubaker at Del Mar during the summer meet, heads the prospective lineup for the $100,000 Cary Grant Stakes for older California-breds going seven furlongs on Sunday.
Magic Mark was third against open company in the Big Bear at Santa Anita last time out Nov. 3.
The Cary Grant was also expected to include Acceptance, Grazen Sky, Image of Joplin, Lucky J Lane, Solid Wager, Tengas Ransom, and Tribal Fighter.
Hoppertunity to Clark
Cash Control and Kitten’s Roar are the 119-pound co-highweights in the Grade 3, $100,000 Cardinal Handicap, which will be run at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
The Cardinal, for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf, goes as the 10th of 11 races on a card that also includes the $80,000 Bet On Sunshine (race 9) for older sprinters.
From the hedge, this is the Cardinal field: Real Smart, Annulment, Complete St., Lady Fog Horn, Kitten’s Roar, The Tea Cups, Belle de Nuit, Christie’s Ready, Heath, Salama, Lots o’ Lex, Cash Control, and Bitty Kitty.
Dominoes are falling in the wake of Antonio Gallardo deciding not to ride this coming winter at Tampa Bay Downs, where he has ruled in recent years.
Albin Jimenez, similarly dominant in recent seasons at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky, is among the jockeys shifting their tack this winter to Tampa, which starts its 2016-17 meet on Nov. 26. Mike Moran, who booked mounts for Gallardo, will now work for Jimenez, while Jimmy McNerney, longtime agent for Jimenez, calls races at Turfway.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Looks like Big Money Mike has landed another big one.
With Rafael Bejarano out the first part of the Del Mar meet owing to six days of suspensions plus an injury to his right hand, jockey Mike Smith has picked up the mount on the highly regarded 2-year-old Mastery for the $100,000 Bob Hope Stakes on Saturday, trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Da Big Hoss is finished racing this year after a highly eventful campaign that ended with a disappointing run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Trainer Mike Maker said Da Big Hoss has been turned out at Woodford Farm in Versailles, Ky., but will return to his stable this winter at Gulfstream Park.
“He’s gone real hard ever since we’ve had him,” said Maker. “He’s getting a break he deserves. Hopefully he’ll be just as good next year when we bring him back.”
This is the sixth autumn that Charlie Smith has sent String King on a five-hour van ride from the training center at which he’s based during the summer, in Haughton, La., down to the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. A gelding Smith bred, owns, and trains, String King turns 9 in a little more than a month. He’s had a wonderful career, with 19 wins – 14 in stakes – from 45 starts. But it’s fair to wonder if String King will be making his annual journey a year from now.
Entries for race cards in Louisiana have been taken a week or more before the actual races for more than a year now. The system’s been in place long enough now that no one really has cause to notice it – except at the start of a meet. Fair Grounds begins its 2016-17 season Saturday, and entries for that card will have been out for eight days when they get around to running it.
