Trainer Steve Asmussen's stable is absolutely loaded with 3-year-old fillies. Nine of them already have proven to be stakes class or look like they could be stakes horses this spring. Here’s a rundown of the roster.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Union Jackson might be poised for his stakes debut following a powerful win last week at Oaklawn. He won an optional $35,000 claiming sprint by 3 3/4 lengths and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 95.
“He came out of the race in good shape, and we’ll go back to the track with him, speak with [Stonestreet Stables], and try to map out a plan,” said trainer Steve Asmussen. “We think there’s stakes in his future.”
It’s like clockwork. Nine days after a race, most high-quality Steve Asmussen-trained horses put in an easy half-mile workout, four furlongs in 51 seconds and change or something in that range. But there on Monday at Fair Grounds, nine days after he won the Risen Star Stakes in his first start at age 3, Gun Runner stepped outside the typical Asmussen pattern, going five furlongs in 1:02.80.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Robertino Diodoro is having another productive meet at Oaklawn, and following the close of the season next month, he will be sending some of his local runners to a meet that the Canadian trainer has not competed at since 2009 – Woodbine.
Diodoro, who has been a fixture at Northlands Park, said he has 16 stalls for the Woodbine meet, which opens April 9. He currently ranks fourth among all trainers in North America with 47 wins through Tuesday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Robert Sica has been hired as vice president of security for the New York Racing Association, returning to a place where he worked during the summers of his youth.
Sica worked as a hotwalker and groom for several trainers at Belmont Park, which is near the village of Floral Park, where he grew up.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Include Betty, a Grade 1-winning 3-year-old filly of 2015, will make her seasonal debut in Saturday’s $150,000 Heavenly Prize Invitational at Aqueduct.
Formerly known as the Cat Cay, the Heavenly Prize, run at 1 1/16 miles over the inner track, drew a field of seven older fillies and mares.
Include Betty, trained by Tom Proctor, went 5 for 11 in 2015. She won four stakes, including the Grade 1 Mother Goose at Belmont in June. She has not raced since finishing second in the off-the-turf Valley View Stakes at Keeneland last Oct. 24.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Shagaf and Rally Cry were both 4-5 when they met in a $38,000, first-level allowance race at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 29. While Shagaf won the race by two lengths, trip handicappers figure to be all over Rally Cry when the two meet again in Saturday’s Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer David Jacobson, who has a stable at Santa Anita for the first time this winter, was fined $500 by Santa Anita stewards last weekend for working a horse 48 hours after the runner was placed on a veterinarian list.
California rules state that horses cannot have a workout within 72 hours after being placed on a veterinarian list. The situation arose when Day of Fury worked Feb. 7 but had been placed on the vet list earlier that week for an illness, according to a ruling issued by Santa Anita stewards Grant Baker, Scott Chaney, and Kim Sawyer.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Not Now Carolyn joined trainer Keith Desormeaux’s stable at the beginning of the year after losses in two maiden races for sprinters. Two months later, she is a winner bound for a graded stakes.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that Not Now Carolyn’s stakes debut is in Saturday’s $100,000 Santa Ysabel Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita. The race has drawn Songbird, the unbeaten champion 2-year-old filly of 2015.
Desormeaux is not deterred. The Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes at 1 1/16 miles fits Not Now Carolyn’s schedule.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Hoppertunity, the Bob Baffert-trained winner of the Grade 2 San Antonio on Feb. 6 at Santa Anita, worked a fast six furlongs Wednesday at Santa Anita as he prepares for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 26.
Flavien Prat, who rode Hoppertunity in the San Antonio, worked the 5-year-old after the 9 a.m. break. Hoppertunity broke off slightly behind an unraced maiden, moved to even terms on the turn, and finished alongside. Clockers timed the work in 1:10.60, the fastest of the morning.