Trainer Joe Orseno is pointing a pair of Gulfstream Park turf sprint winners, Beauty of the Sea and Etrurian, to races at Keeneland.
He said Beauty of the Sea is targeting the Grade 2, $350,000 Franklin. The 5 1/2-furlong turf race for fillies and mares is Oct. 13.
Beauty of the Sea blazed five furlongs in 54.43 seconds winning an overnight handicap in April, then went on to win the Goldwood at Monmouth Park and the Andy Guest at Colonial Downs.
Legacy Downs, one of six tracks running live race dates in Nebraska this year, opens its four-day meet Friday with a four-race card, including a $20,000 stakes race for certified Nebraska-breds.
Legacy, which is located in Lincoln, is one of two tracks in Nebraska running under the brand of WarHorse Casino, one of the new casino operators in Nebraska authorized under a 2020 referendum tying casino licenses to racetracks. WarHorse is owned and operated by the state’s Winnebago Tribe.
Flat Hanby, who has won his last five starts, is under serious consideration for the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sept. 29 at Remington Park, according to his trainer, Boyd Caster.
Entries for the race, which is part of a card of eight stakes, will be taken Saturday.
Flat Hanby has won stakes in each of his last three starts, the latest a division of the Oklahoma Stallion Stakes over seven furlongs Sept. 6 at his base of Remington. He won by 6 1/4 lengths for a Beyer Speed Figure of 81.
Uno Mas Bourbon, who won the $250,000 Super Derby last Saturday at Louisiana Downs, was trainer Ian Wilkes’s first starter at the Bossier City, La., track – but not his first experience with the meet’s most prestigious race.
“The last time I was there was with Unbridled and Home At Last with Carl Nafzger,” Wilkes said of his time as an exercise rider and later assistant to Nafzger.
The 2-year-old set features prominently on Friday’s 10-race card, which begins at 12:45 p.m., with two divisions of a $120,000 maiden special weight for juvenile fillies.
The first of those, the day’s fourth race, marks the debut of the well-bred Ensorcell for Ron Moquett. The daughter of rising star sire Not This Time is out of the locally popular Grade 1 winner On Fire Baby.
Alyeska and Geez Eloise are both daughters of prominent freshman sire Vekoma, who leads his class by individual winners and is represented by last weekend’s Iroquois winner, Jonathan’s Way.
Zeitlos has won three stakes sprinting on dirt this year. She is winless in her two turf starts. But still, trainer Steve Asmussen said another try on the grass could be in the future for the filly, who notched her latest victory in the Open Mind Stakes last Saturday at Churchill Downs.
Average handle per race at Monmouth Park in New Jersey during its recently completed meet was up 5.8 percent, according to an analysis by Daily Racing Form, though the average purse at the track dropped 10.8 percent.
Average handle per race for the 50-day meet was $435,845, according to the analysis, compared to an average of $411,897 during a 51-day meet last year. The average field size was 7.52 horses per race, down slightly from a 7.71 average field size in 2023.
Jonathan’s Way won the first points race toward the 2025 Kentucky Derby on the front end by a professional 2 3/4 lengths in the Grade 3, $300,000 Iroquois Stakes on Saturday at Churchill Downs. The Vekoma colt is now targeting the Grade 1, $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar.
Purse levels for the Golden State Racing meeting at Pleasanton this fall had not been finalized as of Sunday and were scheduled to be subject of discussions by racing officials early this week in advance of a key meeting of the California Horse Racing Board on Thursday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A last-to-first victory by Misseliofwar ($61) in Friday’s 10th and final race at Aqueduct resulted in there being carryovers in the late pick 5 and the pick 6 on Saturday.
The carryover in the late pick 5 is $323,211 and the wager, with a $0.50 minimum, will be on races 7 through 11. The carryover in the pick 6, which carries a $1 minimum and begins in race 6, is $39,020.
