SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown’s contingent of horses who shipped to Chicago for last Saturday’s Arlington Million card were back in New York by Sunday night, and the majority of them will be pointed to stakes races at the Belmont fall meet.
Sea Calisi, who won the Grade 1 Beverly D., likely will target the Grade 1, $500,000 Flower Bowl Invitational on Oct. 8 as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Belmont Stakes winner Creator continues to show signs that his race in the Jim Dandy Stakes, as bad as it was, has moved him forward. For the second straight week, he showed good energy in a five-furlong workout in company with Gun Runner that went in 1:00.60 over Saratoga’s main track Monday.
Both 3-year-olds, coming off disappointing finishes in their most recent outings, are pointing to the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 27.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Songbird put the finishing touches on her major preparation for Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama Stakes by working a half-mile in 48.43 seconds Monday over Saratoga’s main track.
The work was her third and final move in between her victory in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks here on July 24 and the Alabama, the signature race of the meet for 3-year-old fillies.
Fair Grounds in New Orleans will pack 11 stakes races into its 10-date meet for Quarter Horses that opens Wednesday. The season runs through Sept. 3.
New Orleans has been spared from the flooding that engulfed the Baton Rouge, La., area last week, and as of Monday, the 12-race opener at Fair Grounds was on, according to Scott Jones, assistant racing secretary for the Quarter Horse meet.
“We’re good,” Jones said. “We were not affected. We had lots of rain but no flooding here.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Canadian Millions Sales Stakes Day has been good to trainer John Ross, who has won at least one sales stakes in each of the past three years. Ross hopes to extend that streak Aug. 31 and has nominated a horse to four of the day’s six sales stakes races, which will be run one day before the Canadian premier yearling sale at Woodbine.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Queen’s Plate winner Sir Dudley Digges and Prince of Wales Stakes winner Amis Gizmo appear to be poised for a rematch in Sunday’s $500,000 Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine, the third jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown.
Entries for the Breeders’ Stakes will close Thursday, but as of last Sunday, a field of 10 was expected for the 1 1/2-mile journey around the E.P. Taylor turf course, including the aforementioned winners of the first two Canadian classics.
DEL MAR, Calif. -- Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist is expected to spend the remainder of August at San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego county and will rejoin trainer Doug O’Neill’s main stable in September at Santa Anita.
O’Neill said over the weekend that Nyquist will have a few workouts at San Luis Rey Downs this month before being sent to Santa Anita when his stable leaves Del Mar in early September. O’Neill stressed that Nyquist remains a candidate for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing on Sept. 24.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Tourny, a Group 3 winner in France last year, will make her American debut in an optional claimer at five furlongs on turf in Wednesday’s third race at Del Mar.
Tourny’s appearance on Wednesday has been highly anticipated for months by owners Pete and Kosta Hronis and trainer John Sadler.
DELMAR, Calif. -- Jockey Florent Geroux, who is riding primarily at Saratoga this summer, has withdrawn an appeal of a three-day suspension for causing interference in the fifth race at Del Mar on July 23.
Geroux was originally suspended for three racing days - July 30-31, and Aug. 3 - but appealed the decision. He recently withdrew the appeal, according to a ruling issued by Del Mar stewards on Thursday. The amended dates of the suspension are Aug. 20-21 and 24.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Keen Ice, who upset American Pharoah in last year’s Travers, worked three furlongs in 38.33 seconds Friday morning, his first work in five months and his first for his new trainer, Todd Pletcher.
“Just your standard, easy, three-eighths, first work back; seemed to do it well in hand with a decent-enough gallop-out that we’ll proceed to a half-mile from there,” Pletcher said.
