ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Norberto Arroyo Jr., second in the jockey standings at the Santa Anita autumn meeting through Monday, has been suspended three days for causing interference in the first race on Sunday.
The suspension is scheduled for Sunday and the following Thursday and Friday, but Arroyo’s brother and agent, Nelson, said on Monday that he plans to launch an appeal.
Through Monday, Flavien Prat led all riders with 10 wins, one more than Arroyo.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Grand Tito, a multiple-graded-stakes-winning 6-year-old horse, is dealing with a mild case of laminitis, according to trainer Gustavo Delgado.
Grand Tito is based at the Ruffian Equine Clinic across the street from Belmont Park. The horse developed laminitis after a shoeing incident the week of the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, a race he was being pointed to but did not participate in.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The multiple stakes winner Dacita will not make the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Chad Brown said, owing to a physical issue that will sideline her for the remainder of 2016.
Dacita won the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga and the Grade 2 New York this year and most recently finished second by a nose in the Grade 2 Canadian at Woodbine.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The last time the Breeders’ Cup was held at Santa Anita, trainer Chad Brown won the Turf Sprint with Bobby’s Kitten, who was turning back in distance from a mile and trying the hillside turf course for the first time.
Brown will attempt to use that formula again this year with A Lot, a horse who last raced at a mile – finishing second in the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga in August – and will be trying the 6 1/2 furlongs down the hill for the first time.
ELMONT, N.Y. – You know the end of turf season is around the corner when trainers are wheeling their horses back in three weeks to run in stakes.
Saturday’s $200,000 Pebbles Stakes at a mile on turf drew a field of 12, including Ancient Secret, Stella Rose, and Thundering Sky, all of whom are coming out of stakes races on Sept. 24.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Theory beat Reckling by 5 1/2 lengths in an $83,000 maiden race at Saratoga on July 30. Eleven weeks later, those two will meet again in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Futurity at Belmont Park.
Only three other horses were entered in the six-furlong Futurity, including Star Empire, third in the Arlington-Washington Futurity, who was supplemented to the race by trainer Wesley Ward for owner Belinda Bateman.
Moves Like Ali and The Walk were also entered. The Futurity will go as race 3 on Saturday’s nine-race card.
Karl Broberg, who leads all trainers in wins in North America in 2016, is branching out to Kentucky.
Broberg said he has some horses stabled at Churchill Downs for the first time. The group includes recent Remington Park winner Boom Bam Bing, one of the year’s winningest 3-year-olds. She is being pointed for the Grade 3, $100,000 Franklin County on Friday at Keeneland.
There are a number of logical reasons why Chocopologie is being penciled in for the Grade 2, $200,000 Fayette on Oct. 29 at Keeneland. And then there’s one that comes straight from the heart. “Dad won that race three times, so it’s kind of a sentimental choice for me,” said trainer Patrick Devereux Jr.
Devereux came up under his father, the late trainer Patrick Devereux Sr., who won the Fayette with Royal Harmony in 1969, 1970, and 1971.
MIAMI – Wednesday’s main event at Gulfstream Park West is a good one – a high-level optional-claiming race that lured a field of eight topped by Mr. Baker, J S Bach, and the graded stakes winner Singanothersong. But perhaps the most interesting horse on the card will compete one race earlier in a starter optional claimer.
The Grade 1-placed Mr. Online makes his first start in more than a year and his first since being transferred to the barn of trainer David Braddy this summer.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Gormley, the winner of the Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 1, was given a fundamental lesson in a half-mile workout at Santa Anita on Monday.
A leading hopeful for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile here on Nov. 5, Gormley worked in 49.60 seconds after starting behind stablemate Veneto, who was timed in 50 seconds.
“We went back to the basics,” trainer John Shirreffs said. “We worked him behind another horse. He stayed behind another horse as long as he could to get the experience of dirt in his face.
