There isn’t so much as one allowance on an eight-race Friday card at Ellis Park, where the 30-day summer meet is quietly winding down. The western Kentucky track will go dark Saturday to avoid a conflict with Kentucky Downs, and then the meet closes with Sunday and Monday cards.
Closing day will feature the last of five stakes, the $50,000 Cliff Guilliams Memorial for older horses at 1 1/16 miles on turf. First post daily is 12:50 p.m. Central.
It was taking a whole lot of time Wednesday morning for some trainers to enter all the horses they hoped to run Saturday on the 10-race opening-day card at Kentucky Downs.
Some trainers were entering more for one day than they sometimes run in a week. Clearly, the absurdly rich five-day meet at Kentucky Downs has become a primary focus for horsemen in Kentucky and beyond.
Ben Colebrook told Kentucky Downs publicity he intended to enter a combined 10 horses in seven of the opening-day races, and Joe Sharp said he had about seven to enter.
Julien Leparoux is set to return to the saddle on the second day of the Kentucky Downs meet, Sept. 8, after being cleared this week to begin exercising horses. The 33-year-old jockey fractured his wrist when he was thrown from a mount following an Aug. 6 race at Saratoga.
Leparoux tied for leading rider at the 2014 Kentucky Downs meet with the since-retired Rosie Napravnik. Last year, his fellow Frenchman Florent Geroux dominated the jockey standings with 12 wins. Geroux is scheduled to ride all five Kentucky Downs dates this year. The meet begins Saturday.
DEL MAR, Calif. – John Sadler has been spending his summers at Del Mar for more than 30 years now, enough time to win three training titles and rank sixth all time in stakes wins, yet he might very well look back at this meet as his most satisfying ever, and it’s not done yet.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Bob Baffert continued his strong run in 2-year-old maiden races last weekend when the colt Cairo Healer and the filly Life’s Blessings both won their debuts. He has high hopes for both.
Cairo Healer, named by owner Ahmed Zayat for his father – who recently died – fled the rail when winning on Sunday.
“He’s really improved,” Baffert said of the son of Giant’s Causeway. “He’s the most-improved horse in the barn. He was a little nut case.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The I’m Smokin Stakes may be the richest race on the card Friday, but the best race might be race 7, a $67,000 allowance that attracted a high-class group of female sprinters going five furlongs on turf. The field includes Snow Cloud, a two-time winner on the course this meet, and the multiple stakes winner Pretty N Cool, who makes her first start on turf.
“What a tough race that is,” said trainer Jim Cassidy, whose banner Del Mar meeting has included a pair of victories by Snow Cloud. “If that’s not a stake, I don’t know what is.”
The Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission has reversed a decision by the stewards at Parx racetrack to disqualify Rebecca’s Surprise from first to second for causing interference in the stretch of an allowance race on Nov. 30 of last year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Ironicus breezed three furlongs in 37.98 seconds Monday over the Oklahoma training track, his first breeze since he finished second to Flintshire in the Grade 1 Manhattan on June 11.
Trainer Shug McGaughey said that Ironicus popped a splint bone, and he had to back off in the horse’s training.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The New York Racing Association will offer a late pick-five wager over the final four days of the Saratoga meet, Friday through Monday.
The wager will be on the last five races on the card. On Friday, it’ll be on races 6 through 10; on Saturday and Sunday, races 8-12; and Monday, races 7-11.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Tepin followed a very good work last week on turf with an even better one Monday, breezing five furlongs in 58.40 seconds over the Oklahoma turf course as she continues preparations for the $1 million Woodbine Mile on Sept. 17.
