ARCADIA, Calif. – Warren’s Veneda, a winner of four stakes at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita, has been retired and will be bred to Clubhouse Ride this year, trainer Craig Lewis said on Friday.
The decision was reached by Lewis and owner and breeder Ben Warren after Warren’s Veneda emerged from a workout Jan. 10 with inflammation in a leg. Warren’s Veneda was a candidate for the $200,000 La Canada Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – John Servis, who trained one of the most popular horses to ever race at Oaklawn Park in Smarty Jones, said he will be sending a string of horses to the Hot Springs, Ark., track this coming week. Servis also has divisions of his stable in Florida and Pennsylvania.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Trainer Mark Casse, who has a 25-horse division at Oaklawn Park, said Stephen Foster winner Noble Bird could turn up in Hot Springs. The biggest offering for handicap horses at the meet is the Grade 2, $750,000 Oaklawn on April 16.
“There is a chance Noble Bird is going to come out there,” said Casse. “There’s a chance of that.”
Some of the quality runners Casse has on the grounds now include the promising 3-year-olds Siding Spring and Conquest Windycity.
“We brought some 3-year-olds because it’s such a great program,” said Casse.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park will launch its 3-year-old series on Monday when 14 horses led by Toews On Ice run in the $150,000 Smarty Jones. Entries for the one-mile race were taken on Friday.
The Smarty Jones – which will end at the sixteenth pole – offers its first four finishers Kentucky Derby points on a preference system administered by Churchill Downs. The points will be awarded on a scale of 10-4-2-1.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Clothes Fall Off streaked to a track record for 5 1/2 furlongs over Aqueduct’s inner track Thursday and will likely make her next start in the Grade 2, $300,000 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel on Feb. 13, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said.
Clothes Fall Off, a daughter of Daaher, won a second-level allowance race by 1 1/2 lengths Thursday, running 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:02.89. That eclipsed the previous mark of 1:03.50 set on Jan. 22, 2011, by Head Heart Hoof. Clothes Fall Off was assigned a 91 Beyer Speed Figure.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With the temperatures near 50 degrees Friday morning, there was an April feel to the air in the New York area.
That spring feeling carried over to the entry box, where Dads Caps and Green Gratto – the one-two finishers from last April’s Grade 1 Carter Handicap – topped a field of six entered for Monday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Toboggan Stakes at Aqueduct.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Flexibility, winner of the Grade 3 Jerome Stakes on Jan. 2, tuned up for an expected start in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes by working a half-mile in 48.14 seconds over the Belmont Park training track Friday morning. The Withers will be run Jan. 30 at Aqueduct.
The work was done in company with Building Permit and equaled the fastest of 157 workouts at the distance on an extremely busy morning. Many horsemen moved up scheduled Saturday workouts to Friday due to forecasted overnight rain.
NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana-bred millionaire Sunbean, unraced since February 2015, has gotten up to five furlongs in his workouts and is set to make his return to the races sometime this Fair Grounds meet, trainer Ron Faucheux said Thursday.
Sunbean, a 6-year-old gelding who has won 13 of 21 starts, had his first work this winter Dec. 6, and on Wednesday he worked five furlongs in 1:02.40. Faucheux, who trains Sunbean for the Brittlyn Stable, said Sunbean is being pointed to the Star Guitar Stakes for Louisiana-breds March 26.
NEW ORLEANS – Cash Back is the latest in a long line of talented horses produced by the mare Hidden Assets, and the 3-year-old filly ran her career record to 2 for 2 with a comfortable front-running victory in a turf-sprint allowance race here Thursday.
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Larry Jones is trying to take it easy with I’m a Chatterbox, but the 4-year-old filly, who has a chance to be named champion 3-year-old filly of 2015 at the Eclipse Awards this weekend, is getting restless.
Jones had been restricting I’m a Chatterbox’s morning exercise to half-mile gallops until two days ago. With I’m a Chatterbox pushing to do more, he let her begin galloping one mile.
“She’s ramped it up a little bit these last two days,” Jones said Friday morning after training hours.
