OZONE PARK, N.Y. – While trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is hoping Clothes Fall Off can get her first stakes win in Saturday’s $125,000 Correction at Aqueduct, he is eyeing bigger prizes for two of his stakes-winning filly-and-mare sprinters.
Cavorting, the winner of the Grade 1 Test last summer, is working toward the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland on April 9. Cavorting, third as the favorite in the Grade 1 La Brea at Santa Anita on Dec. 26, has breezed three times at Palm Meadows.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Effinex, who finished third as the favorite in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap last Saturday, arrived back in New York on Wednesday following a cross-country flight from Southern California.
Steve Moyer, assistant to trainer Jimmy Jerkens, said the race and the trip “took a little toll” on Effinex, who hadn’t run since winning the Grade 1 Clark Handicap last November. Moyer did say that Effinex was “completely clear” of the hives that plagued him leading into the Santa Anita Handicap.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Matt King Coal, impressive in winning a first-level allowance race at Aqueduct on March 6, definitely will make his next start in the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial here on April 9, trainer Linda Rice said Thursday.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Grade 3 stakes winner Cocked and Loaded, gearing up for his first start of the year in the Blue Grass Stakes, breezed five furlongs in 59.80 seconds at Tampa Bay Downs on Thursday, the fastest of 15 works at the distance. It was the second straight bullet workout for the 3-year-old Cocked and Loaded, following a half-mile in 47.60 on March 9.
Trainer Larry Rivelli said Cocked and Loaded worked “like a monster.”
The 43-year-old breeder and owner Ron Winchell loves the action of having horses running, and his stable will see some significant play over the next few weeks. Winchell’s champion Untapable is set to make her 5-year-old debut Saturday at Oaklawn in the Grade 2, $350,000 Azeri, while his promising Madtap makes his stakes debut on the same card in the Grade 2, $900,000 Rebel.
Eagle already has raced in December, January, and February at this meet but still is fresh and sharp for his start March 26 in the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap, trainer Neil Howard said.
“I don’t think anyone would come into things planning on running in four races like this, but I am so encouraged the way he’s training, the way he looks, we decided go ahead and point for the race,” said Howard.
Add a ninth horse, Majesto, to the list of probable entrants Saturday for the Louisiana Derby on March 26.
Majesto, based in Florida with trainer Gustavo Delgado, won a two-turn dirt maiden race at Gulfstream on Feb. 27 in his fifth start and will be a longshot if he indeed comes for the $1 million Louisiana Derby.
The Oaklawn-based Dazzling Gem also could be entered, trainer Brad Cox told DRF’s Mary Rampellini.
The Pimlico meet will start later and end later this year than in 2015 and will have nine fewer racing days. The stakes schedule is different too but will offer the same 15 stakes as last year on its two main cards, Preakness Day and Black-Eyed Susan Day.
In 2015, Pimlico raced 37 days from April 2 to Belmont Stakes Day, June 6. This year, a 28-day meet will start May 12, the Thursday after the Kentucky Derby, and run through June 26.
The Belmont Stakes, in which American Pharoah became Thoroughbred racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner – and its first in 37 years – has been nominated by the Sports Business Journal as the Sports Event of the Year, the New York Racing Association announced Wednesday.
The Belmont is a finalist along with Super Bowl 50, the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final, the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, and the Bojangles Southern 500, a NASCAR race.
It looks as though King Kreesa, Kharafa, and Lubash – the New York-bred version of the Sunshine Boys – are preparing to tee it up again in 2016.
The 7-year-old King Kreesa, an eight-time stakes winner, worked a half-mile in 51.75 seconds over the Belmont Park training track Wednesday. King Kreesa had two three-furlong breezes at J.J. Crupi’s farm in Ocala, Fla., before shipping up. King Kreesa hasn’t run since finishing sixth in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile last October at Keeneland.
