DEL MAR, Calif. – Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the Del Mar summer meeting, will ride Grade 1 winner Dortmund for the first time in the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 20.
Trainer Bob Baffert said on Friday the decision was finalized after Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens chose to ride the mare Beholder, who won the 2015 Pacific Classic.
Santa Anita has scheduled 41 stakes, including the 13 races comprising the Breeders’ Cup Championships, for its six-week autumn meeting, which runs from Sept. 30 to Nov. 6.
The Breeders’ Cup races will be run Nov. 4-5. The schedule for the autumn meeting is strikingly similar to the 2014 meeting, the last year Santa Anita hosted the Breeders’ Cup races.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Steve Asmussen, who was scheduled to be inducted into Thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame on Friday, will try to cap a memorable weekend when he runs Tip Tap Tapizar in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Saratoga Special for 2-year-olds at Saratoga.
Tip Tap Tapizar was one of five 2-year-olds entered in the 6 1/2-furlong race. Among those he’ll face is Recruiting Ready, who finished ahead of Tip Tap Tapizar when the two were second and third behind Classic Empire in the Grade 3 Bashford Manor at Churchill Downs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The Coaching Club American Oaks proved to be Plan C for Flora Dora. In the end, it wasn’t a bad plan.
Flora Dora finished third behind the champion Songbird in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks, and now she’s Grade 1 stakes-placed, an important factor for breeding purposes.
Flora Dora will take on Songbird again in next Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama and will try to improve her position by at least one. Carina Mia, who finished second in the Coaching Club, is not running back in the Alabama.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When trainer Elizabeth Voss runs Reporting Star in Saturday’s Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga, she will be attempting to accomplish something even her father, the late Tom Voss, didn’t: win a Grade 1 steeplechase and a Grade 1 flat race in the same summer.
“Geez, don’t even say that,” Voss said Thursday. “I might pass out if it actually happened.”
Tom Voss did win Grade 1 races on both the flat and hurdles, just not in the same year. Jonathan Sheppard twice won Grade 1 races on the flat and jumps in the same year, the last time in 2009.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Second Summer, the winner of the Grade 2 Californian Stakes at Santa Anita in May, was recently sold and will be sent to a Persian Gulf country to continue racing, former trainer Peter Eurton said.
Eurton said Second Summer was shipped to Kentucky this week to undergo quarantine. Eurton said he was not told who bought Second Summer or where the 4-year-old gelding would eventually be based.
DEL MAR, Calif. – A year ago, Midnight Storm was ambitiously tried in the $1 million Pacific Classic on dirt, finishing last of 10 in Del Mar’s richest race. He has not raced on the main track since and will not for the foreseeable future.
On Thursday, trainer Phil D’Amato said he plans to start Midnight Storm in the $200,000 Del Mar Mile on turf Aug. 21, a day after this year’s Pacific Classic.
Victor Carrasco, the leading rider at the Laurel Park summer meeting, will be sidelined this weekend as he continues to recover from a foot injury he sustained Sunday.
Carrasco, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice rider of 2013, holds a one-win lead in the standings over Feargal Lynch coming into Friday's Laurel races. Carrasco was injured prior to the fourth race Sunday when he was unseated by his mount while heading from the paddock to the track.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Kafister has a way to go before catching trainer David Bernstein’s best claim, but with his 12th victory Wednesday at Del Mar, Kafister earned a right to try joining Grade 1 winner Unfurl the Flag as former claiming horses Bernstein turned into stakes winners.
Kafister earned a career-high 95 Beyer Speed Figure in winning an optional-claiming sprint at Del Mar on Wednesday in 1:14.73 for 6 1/2 furlongs. He also earned a berth in the $75,000 Pirate’s Bounty Stakes, a 5 1/2-furlong restricted stakes on Sept. 5, closing day of the summer meet.
The $1 million Florida Derby and the inaugural running of the $12 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational will highlight a record stakes schedule for the 2016-17 Gulfstream Park championship session, which opens Dec. 3.
