HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Kertez, winner of the Grade 2 Pan American, and McKulick, winner of the Grade 3 Orchid Stakes, will both likely make their next starts at Aqueduct in May, their trainers indicated.
Christophe Clement, trainer of Kertez and Pan Am third-place finisher Tawny Port, said both will be aimed at the Grade 2, $400,000 Man o’ War on May 11. Trainer Chad Brown said McKulick will likely target the Grade 3, $200,000 Sheepshead Bay at Aqueduct on May 3.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Power Squeeze doesn’t get a lot of respect at the windows, but all she seems to do is win.
Following her 11-1 upset in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks, Power Squeeze will bring a four-race winning streak to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Oaks on May 3. Since winning a one-mile maiden race last October at Delaware Park, Power Squeeze has won the Cash Run at Gulfstream and the Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay before her one-length victory over odds-on favorite Ways and Means in the Gulfstream Oaks.
Los Alamitos has canceled its Saturday evening program of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds because of a forecast of extensive rain.
The decision was announced on Friday, a day after Santa Anita canceled racing on Saturday and Sunday for the same reason.
Los Alamitos did not have a Sunday program scheduled because of Easter.
Saturday’s eight-race program included five 220-yard maiden races for 2-year-olds that were designed as prep races for time trials for the Robert Adair Kindergarten Fuuturity on April 21. The final will be run in May.
Trainer John Shirreffs has won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby three times since 2007, and has a potential for a fourth if Mc Vay scores an upset in the $750,000 race on April 6.
A win by Mc Vay would be unique, a victory by a maiden in California’s leading race for 3-year-olds.
Mc Vay, owned by Lee and Susan Searing’s CRK Stable, was a well-beaten third in his last start, the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita on March 3.
INDIANTOWN, Fla. – Hard to Justify, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner, is being pointed to the Grade 2, $600,000 Edgewood at Churchill Downs on the May 3 Kentucky Oaks undercard. On Friday at Payson Park, Hard to Justify worked a half-mile in 48.98 seconds over the main track. It was her fifth work since getting started just a hair late following a freshening.
“She’s training great, she’s taken another step forward, a little stronger this year,” Brown said. “She’s training like an older horse, really.”
INDIANTOWN, Fla. – Trainer Chad Brown said Tuscan Gold, third in the March 24 Louisiana Derby, will be pointed to the Preakness on May 18, trainer Chad Brown.
Tuscan Gold, who won his first two starts, did not have the smoothest of trips when third, beaten 1 3/4 lengths by Catching Freedom in the Louisiana Derby. He earned only 25 qualifying points to the May 4 Kentucky Derby, unlikely to be enough to get into the Derby field.
INDIANTOWN, Fla. – Deterministic, the Grade 3 Gotham winner, completed preparations for next Saturday’s Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct by working five furlongs in 1:01.48 Friday morning at Payson Park, a training center about 90 minutes north of Gulfstream Park.
By his own tally, veteran jockey Umberto Rispoli won the 2,000th race of his career aboard Trikari in the Rushaway Stakes at Turfway Park in Kentucky last Saturday.
To reach the milestone, Rispoli, 35, has won races on four continents – Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America – in a career that began in 2005.
Rispoli is from Italy and won 1,122 races in that country at the start of his career. He has since won 467 races in the United States, 238 in France, 123 in Hong Kong, 40 in Japan, five in Germany, four in South Africa, and one each in Britain, Macau, and Mauritius.
Skelly has returned to Oaklawn after running second in the Group 3, $1.5 million Riyadh Dirt Sprint in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 24, according to his trainer, Steve Asmussen. Plans call for the top-class runner to defend his title in the Grade 3, $500,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap on April 13.
“Skelly’s here at Oaklawn,” Asmussen said Tuesday. “He’s back training regularly and we think the Count Fleet, we’ll be ready for it.”
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Back in February 2016, a Colonel John filly named Ma’am won her maiden at Oaklawn Park.
Fast forward to February 2024 and her first foal, Mystik Dan, was a dominant winner of the track’s Grade 3, $800,000 Southwest Stakes.
The performance has made Mystik Dan one of the top choices for the Grade 1, $1.5 million Arkansas Derby on Saturday in what has been a meaningful journey for a group of breeders and owners born and raised in Arkansas.
