ARCADIA, Calif. – Taris, the winner of the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes in January, worked five furlongs in 1:01.60 on Friday for a scheduled start in the $500,000 Santa Margarita Invitational at Santa Anita on March 19.
Taris worked alone. Trainer Simon Callaghan timed the 5-year-old mare in 1:01.40. He clocked her galloping out six furlongs in “1:13 and change.”
“She’s so much more relaxed in her works,” Callaghan said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – French Getaway has made all four of his starts on dirt but has been considered a long-term prospect for turf races since he joined trainer Bob Hess Jr.’s stable last year. On Sunday at Santa Anita, French Getaway will start on dirt again in an optional claimer that will determine which surface will be the focus of upcoming starts for him.
The same race will be Malibu Sunset’s first start for trainer Bob Baffert after an eye-catching win at Fair Grounds last month in his debut.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Flamboyant, the leading turf horse in Southern California this winter, will make his next start in the $6 million Dubai Turf at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates on March 26, according to co-owner Chuck Winner.
Winner said the other option to the Dubai Turf, run at about 1 1/8 miles, is the $200,000 San Luis Rey Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on turf at Santa Anita on March 13.
“We’re leaning toward Dubai,” Winner said on Thursday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Penwith, the winner of the Grade 2 Royal Delta at Gulfstream Park in her last start Feb. 13, is scheduled to head to California to try to annex the first Grade 1 of her career.
Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Penwith will go to Santa Anita for the $500,000 Santa Margarita Stakes on March 19.
“She’s got a Grade 2, so another Grade 2 doesn’t do her any good. She needs to run in a Grade 1,” McLaughlin said.
On Friday, Penwith had her first work since the Royal Delta, a half-mile at the Palm Meadows training center in 49 seconds.
NEW ORLEANS – The Sunday feature, a six-furlong, second-level optional-claiming race for 4-year-olds and up, appears to be wide open. A morning line with odds ranging from 7-2 to 5-1 for all seven runners backs up the point. The race is the fifth on a nine-race card.
Distant Kingdom, a Wes Hawley trainee who lost by a head to Doc Almon at the same level and distance Feb. 6, might be able to get the job done this time.
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Larry Jones said the Louisiana Derby is among several options for Jensen, who dominated first-level allowance rivals here in a 6 3/4-length victory Thursday at a mile and 70 yards. The race had an optional claiming condition, but all seven 3-year-olds were entered under the allowance condition.
“We’ve sure got it in our sights, anyway,’’ Jones said of the March 26 Louisiana Derby.
He and his wife, Cindy, bred and own Jensen, a son of Haynesfield and the Hard Spun mare Spun Lake. Jensen, who led all the way, won for the second time in four starts.
NEW ORLEANS – The consistency of Mike Stidham, who leads the trainers’ race this season at Fair Grounds, stands out.
Stidham, who typically finishes in the top 10 in the local standings, for years has maintained a solid ranking nationally in both trainer purse earnings and victories.
In each of the last 12 years, for example, Stidham was among the top 100 trainers in earnings. Five times in the last six years, he ranked in the top 50. And in 10 of the last 12 years, he was in the top 100 trainers in wins.
The lack of prominence from the Wesley Ward stable at Gulfstream Park this winter might be conspicuous – if not downright alarming – until you consider what’s behind it.
Ward had just one measly win and eight seconds from his first 24 starts at the nearly 3-month-old championship meet at Gulfstream in south Florida. It’s a stark departure from the status quo: Ward was in the Gulfstream top 10 in each of the last three years when averaging almost 22 wins a meet.
Jockey Kyle Frey, originally diagnosed with a fractured leg and arm after a spill Saturday, scored a pair of victories on Thursday’s seven-race card at Golden Gate Fields.
Frey won with No Ez Money ($3.80) in the first race and won the seventh Post Rock ($4.60).
Leading rider Russell Baze won four straight races with Worldly Vision ($3) in the second race, Warrens Lil Margie ($6.60) in the third, Staud’s Swish ($10.20) in the fourth, and Lizzy Marini ($3.60) in the fifth.
The connections of Quijote will resist the temptation of stretching the two-time-winning sprinter out in distance and will ship the 3-year-old gelding from Louisiana to New York for the $125,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct on March 6.
“I talked with Rich Papiese of Midwest Thoroughbreds, and we decided to keep him sprinting,” trainer Tom Amoss said Thursday. “Things open up in April, but they really didn’t right now.”
