AUBURN, Wash. – Emerald Downs unveiled its 2016 stakes schedule this week, a slate of 28 added-money events worth $1.62 million in purses and headlined by the Grade 3, $200,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 14.
The Emerald Downs stakes program includes five races for older horses, five for fillies and mares, five for 3-year-olds, five for 3-year-old fillies, and seven for 2-year-olds, in addition to the $55,000 Bank of America Emerald Downs Championship Challenge for Quarter Horses.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Ishaq, the undefeated winner of the $67,500 Inaugural Stakes last month at Tampa Bay Downs, will need surgery to remove a small chip from his knee and will miss about four months of training, according to trainer Efren Loza Jr.
A disappointed Charlie Smith drove back to northwest Louisiana last weekend but left the star of his two-horse stable, String King, at Fair Grounds with trainer Kenny Hargrave. String King finished fifth last weekend in the Grade 3 Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap, a race he won in 2015, and Smith felt String King never had a chance in the race.
Two of trainer Steve Asmussen’s top 3-year-olds, the filly Nickname and the colt Gun Runner, are approaching their first races of the year.
On Wednesday morning at Fair Grounds, Nickname worked five furlongs in company with Wrath of Ruthie in 1:00.80. Nickname will make her 2016 debut Feb. 5 at Oaklawn Park in the Martha Washington Stakes.
“She worked beautifully this morning,” Asmussen said.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The rematch is on.
Discreetness and Gordy Florida, who finished a neck apart in the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes on Monday at Oaklawn Park, are both being pointed for next month’s Southwest Stakes, according to their trainers. The Grade 3, $500,000 race for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles is Feb. 15.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sunday Rules, the winner of the Kalookan Queen Stakes on Dec. 30, will miss Saturday’s $200,000 Santa Monica Stakes for fillies and mares at Santa Anita after a bout with a bacterial infection this week, trainer Phil D’Amato said on Wednesday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Rafael Bejarano will miss three days of racing at Santa Anita this week to ride in Saudi Arabia on Friday and Saturday.
Bejarano is second in the Santa Anita rider standings behind Santiago Gonzalez. Through Monday, Gonzalez had 19 wins, three more than Bejarano. Bejarano has won the riding title at the last three Santa Anita winter-spring meetings.
This weekend, Bejarano is booked to ride in the King’s Cup, the biggest race of the year in Saudi Arabia, according to his agent, Tora Yamaguchi.
CYPRESS, Calif. – California Chrome had his final day of exercise at Los Alamitos on Wednesday before being flown Thursday to the United Arab Emirates for a scheduled two-race campaign highlighted by a start in the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 26.
Judging from California Chrome’s enthusiasm during a two-mile exercise Wednesday, the 5-year-old is leaving his home state in top form.
“He’s been a handful, bucking and playing,” trainer Art Sherman said. “He’s really been feeling good.”
Monmouth Park will host its biggest handicapping tournament ever on June 4.
The top 15 finishers of the tournament will get to select their prizes. Based on 100 entrants, nine seats at the 2017 DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship, two seats at the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, and $50,000 in cash will be up for grabs.
Golden Years, one of the top 3-year-olds in Maryland at the beginning of the 2015 season, will make his first start in 11 months in the eighth race at Laurel Park on Friday.
Golden Years went 3 for 4 as a 2-year-old at Laurel, winning the Marylander Stakes by more than seven lengths and the restricted Maryland Million Nursery by 1 1/2 lengths for trainer Rodney Jenkins and the Hillwood Stable of Ellen Charles.
