DEL MAR, Calif. - Nyquist, the Kentucky Derby winner, is going through a growth spurt and will spend the next two weeks swimming at the San Luis Rey Downs training center, trainer Doug O'Neill said Sunday morning at Del Mar.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. _ As good a Saratoga meet as trainer Chad Brown is having _ and each day seems better than the previous one _ his moment of the summer may have come Sunday morning as he watched Lady Eli put in a workout over the Oklahoma turf course.
Lady Eli breezed five furlongs in 1:00.25 in company with Beverly D contender Sea Calisi. Lady Eli, with exercise rider Walter Melasquez maintaining a hold of the reins, got her final quarter in 23.61 seconds. Lady Eli and Sea Calisi galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.29 and seven eighths in 1:28.14.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Kobe’s Back, the five-time stakes winner, has been turned out for the rest of the summer and will resume racing in 2017, trainer Peter Eurton said over the weekend.
Eurton said Kobe’s Back has been dealing with minor ailments and will not need surgery. The setback will prevent Kobe’s Back from starting in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. _ Jockey Julien Leparoux, the regular rider of superstar turf mare Tepin, will be out of action for approximately four weeks after suffering a non-displace fracture of his left wrist in a freak spill in Saturday’s De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga.
Leparoux’s saddle on Excilly _ who finished seventh, beaten 3 1/2 lengths _ slipped in mid-stretch. On the gallop out, Leparoux was unseated by the Great Britain-bred mare. Leparoux fell awkwardly on the turf course and suffered the injury.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The graded stakes winners Dalmore and Hard Aces, and the graded stakes-placed Win the Space, worked at Del Mar on Saturday in advance of their expected next start – the difficult assignment of facing California Chrome and Dortmund in the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 20.
Bradester, who continued his love affair with Monmouth Park by winning the Grade 2 Monmouth Cup for the second straight year on July 31, will make his next start in the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodward on Sept. 3, trainer Eddie Kenneally said Saturday.
Bradester won the Grade 1 Stephen Foster on June 18 and was considered a possibility for Saturday’s Grade 1 Whitney here. But given his propensity for Monmouth Park – he has four wins and three seconds from seven starts – made the Monmouth Cup a logical prep for the Woodward.
Trainer David Donk came to Saratoga believing he would run King Kreesa in the West Point Stakes for New York-breds. But as things have developed, Donk is now strongly leaning toward running the 7-year-old gelding in the Grade 1 Fourstardave here next Saturday.
King Kreesa has run in two of the last three runnings of the Fourstardave, finishing second to Wise Dan, beaten 1 1/4 lengths, in 2013 and fourth, beaten a length to Grand Arch last year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There is little time for a horse trainer to lament about yesterday. One has to remain on the move, focused on today and tomorrow.
Such was life for Jimmy Toner on Saturday morning. About 24 1/2 hours after watching his older graded stakes-winning mare Recepta get vanned off the Saratoga main track with a career-ending injury, Toner watched his other turf stakes star Time and Motion breeze for her next engagement in the Grade 2, $300,000 Lake Placid Stakes on Aug. 21.
Puntsville, who has run in three straight stakes races, winning two and most recently finishing a solid second in the Brandywine Stakes at Indiana Grand, drops into allowance competition in the featured second race Sunday at Arlington.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – At least 10 horses, and perhaps as many as 12, are committed to next Saturday’s Arlington Million.
Tryster – who could be the race favorite – Deauville, and Mondialiste head a four-horse overseas contingent that also includes Decorated Knight. The Pizza Man, as the defending Million champion, nominally leads the group of U.S.-based pre-entrants, though The Pizza Man has not yet hit form in 2016 good enough to earn a repeat victory in the 1 1/4-mile grass race.
