HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The 2016 Gulfstream Park spring-summer stakes schedule was released Wednesday, with a program worth a record $5.575 million. The schedule has grown from 29 stakes last season to 41 this year, topped once again by the $1.1 million Summit of Speed card on July 2 and the Florida Sire series, worth nearly $3 million spread over three days, Aug. 6, Sept. 3, and Oct. 1.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The prospective lineup for the $1 million Florida Derby on April 2 grew to at least six this week with the addition of longshot stablemates Sawyers Mickey and Ifyousnoozeyoulose. The pair will join a field led by Mohaymen and Nyquist, the two division leaders and favorites for the 2016 Kentucky Derby.
Chocolate Ride has been beyond remarkable on the Fair Grounds turf, having won six of seven starts over the local course. His most important victory came last year in the Mervin Muniz Memorial on the Louisiana Derby card, and trainer Brad Cox is looking for much of the same Saturday. The 6-year-old Chocolate Ride is clearly the horse to beat in a field of 11 in the 24th running of the Grade 2, $300,000 Muniz.
NEW ORLEANS – Uncle Walter couldn’t have run much worse than he did in the Risen Star Stakes, where he was beaten 41 lengths by the victorious Gun Runner. Trainer Mike Maker would love to offer an excuse for the debacle, but he can’t find one.
“It’s a throw-out,” said Maker. “I don’t have a lot of explanation.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Fantastic Style came off a lengthy layoff to win the Las Flores Stakes on Sunday, giving trainer Bob Baffert and owner Kaleem Shah a pair of top female sprinters who Baffert hopes will be in the mix for championship honors later this year.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Michael Wrona will call the races for the rest of the Santa Anita meeting, which ends April 10, including the Santa Anita Derby on April 9.
Wrona and Frank Mirahmadi have been the primary announcers this season since Trevor Denman announced that he was stepping away from the Santa Anita job a few weeks prior to this meet.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Santiago Gonzalez broke his jaw in an accident in the fifth race at Santa Anita on Sunday and will miss approximately six weeks, according to his agent, Craig Stephen.
Stephen said the jaw was not displaced, and therefore Gonzalez will not need to have the jaw wired shut.
“His face is pretty beat up,” Stephen said. “He has stitches all over his face.”
Stephen said the most significant cut, on Gonzalez’s chin near the fracture, was “half-moon shaped,” and he theorized that Gonzalez may have been clipped by a trailing horse.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Songbird worked five furlongs in 59.60 seconds at Santa Anita on Wednesday with such ease that the track’s official clockers designated the exercise as “breezing” and not the more vigorous “handily.”
Four of Songbird’s last five workouts since mid-February have been rated as breezing.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Upstart’s objective this year is to become a Grade 1 winner, and he ran like he’s down with the plan in Saturday’s Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn. Upstart was launching his 4-year-old season in the Grade 3, $350,000 race and was a sweeping, one-length winner. It was his first start since September.
“It was pretty impressive off the layoff,” trainer Rick Violette said. “He was four to five wide both turns and made a very long run. He launched his bid at the half-mile pole and ran through to the wire.”
