Retama Park near San Antonio has scheduled six stakes races for its Thoroughbred meet, according to racing secretary James Leatherman. The season opens Sept. 2. Retama will race 26 dates through Nov. 26.
The El Joven and La Senorita, one-mile turf races for 2-year-olds, will share a card Oct. 15. The purse for each race is $75,000. Leatherman said the next round of nominations closes Aug. 12.
Promise Me Silver and Bling On the Music are both being pointed for stakes at Saratoga after dominant wins last weekend at Lone Star Park.
Promise Me Silver was a seven-length winner of the $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes for Texas-bred fillies and mares July 9, covering six furlongs in 1:10.20. She shipped Thursday to Kentucky and from there will travel to Saratoga, said trainer Bret Calhoun.
Promise Me Silver, who races for her breeders, Robert and Myrna Luttrell, will target the $100,000 Shine Again, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares Aug. 3.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Highland Sky, the runner-up to Deauville in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, will be pointed to the Grade 1, $450,000 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park on Aug. 13, trainer Barclay Tagg said Friday.
Tagg said the 1 1/4 miles of the Secretariat is more appealing to him than the 1 1/16 miles of the Grade 2, $200,000 National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 5.
“He needs all that,” Tagg said of the distance.
Tagg also likes the extra eight days that Highland Sky will have from the Belmont Derby to the Secretariat.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Travis Stone, best known as the track announcer at Churchill Downs, will make the morning line during the Saratoga meet, which begins next Friday. New York Racing Association officials confirmed the news that Stone first tweeted on Thursday.
Stone will do the morning line in place of Eric Donovan, who will still handle morning-line duties at Aqueduct and Belmont Park. Donovan is also a producer for NYRA television, which will be debuting “Saratoga Live,” a 2 1/2-hour daily program, this summer.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Mohaymen had his strongest breeze Friday since finishing fourth in the Kentucky Derby, working five furlongs in 1:00.66 over the Saratoga main track.
Daily Racing Form clocker Mike Welsch caught Mohaymen’s first three furlongs in 35.80 seconds and his final quarter in 24.86. Welsch caught Mohaymen galloping out six furlongs in 1:14.71. Mohaymen is pointing to either the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 30 or the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 31.
DEL MAR, Calif. – What a View, a winner of three consecutive stakes at Santa Anita this year, has resumed training after a springtime break necessitated by trouble with his feet.
Trainer Kenny Black said on Friday that What a View has been galloping for two weeks and might start at the Del Mar meet, which runs through Sept. 5.
“We hope he can run toward the end,” Black said. “We pulled the shoes and let his feet grow out.”
What a View, a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 5, has won 6 of 12 starts and earned $592,148.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Straight Fire has been so sharp in recent training that trainer Keith Desormeaux is unsure what to expect when the 2-year-old has his debut in a maiden race at five furlongs at Del Mar on Sunday.
“He’s done everything so easily, you wonder how fit he is,” Desormeaux said. “My horses usually need a race, so we’ll hope for the best. The good thing is he’s shown a lot of talent.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Cheekaboo and Pacific Heat have led trainer Peter Eurton’s 3-year-old filly division on turf this year, each winning two stakes.
Fortunately for Eurton and the fillies’ owners, there are enough stakes on the first two weekends of the Del Mar summer meeting to keep them apart. Cheekaboo starts in Sunday’s $75,000 Sandy Blue Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on turf. Pacific Heat is a candidate for the $200,000 San Clemente Handicap at a mile on turf July 23.
The races can be considered semifinals for the $300,000 Del Mar Oaks, a Grade 1 at 1 1/8 miles on Aug. 20.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Carina Mia tuned up for her confrontation with division leader Songbird in the Coaching Club American Oaks next Sunday with an impressive five-furlong work over the Oklahoma training track on Friday.
Carina Mia posted splits of 12.80 seconds and 35.80 en route to a final clocking of 58.80 before galloping out six furlongs in 1:11.80 and pulling up seven furlongs in 1:26, according to Daily Racing Form clocker Mike Vesce. Vesce described the work as “eye-catching” and said she went so easily that she appeared to have gone in 1:02.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Starting Sunday, the New York Racing Association will embark on a time-sensitive project to widen the Belmont Park training track.
Construction will begin almost immediately after training hours end Sunday, and the hope is that the project will be completed and the training track reopened by the time the Saratoga meet ends on Labor Day, Sept. 5.
The stretches will be widened by about 17 feet. The far turn will be widened by 18 feet, and the first turn will be widened by about 13 feet.
