OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Blane Servis didn’t accompany his father to Aqueduct on Jan. 3, 2004, when the John Servis-trained Smarty Jones won the Count Fleet Stakes, kicking off a 3-year-old campaign that would include victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but a kick-in-the-gut one-length defeat in the Belmont Stakes.
Back then, there were other things more appealing for a 16-year-old kid to do than spend a day at the Big A.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The freakishly fast but frequently fragile Mean Season is nearing a return to the races.
Mean Season, a son of Henny Hughes entering his 6-year-old season, blitzed four furlongs in 46.69 seconds Sunday over the training track at Belmont Park, his first local work after five breezes at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Matt King Coal, an impressive maiden winner at Belmont in October, will be forced to skip Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Jerome Stakes after getting sick for the second time in a month.
Trainer Linda Rice said Matt King Coal spiked a fever shortly after getting over a respiratory infection. Rice said she sent the horse to Patty Hogan’s farm in Cream Ridge, N.J., for a four- to six-week vacation.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jan’s Reserve, the dominant winner of the King’s Swan Stakes over Aqueduct’s main track Nov. 27, topped a field of seven entered for Friday’s inaugural running of the $125,000 Lost in the Fog Stakes for 3-year-old sprinters over the inner track.
The Lost in the Fog is the first of four sprints for 3-year-olds offered at Aqueduct during the winter-spring season, culminating April 9 with the Grade 3, $300,000 Bay Shore.
Jockey Pedro Flores suffered a crack in his first thoracic vertebra (T1) when his mount, On Time Cat, broke down and fell on the far turn in Sunday’s third race at Golden Gate Fields.
Flores was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland and was to remain overnight for observation. A CT scan on his head proved negative.
On Time Cat suffered a fractured left front cannon bone and had to be euthanized.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Nyquist, the unbeaten winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland on Oct. 31, worked a half-mile in 48.40 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday, moving closer to an expected return to racing in February.
Trainer Doug O’Neill said on Sunday that Nyquist is a candidate for the $200,000 San Vicente Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs on Feb. 15 “if everything goes perfect.”
ARCADIA, Calif. - Rotten traffic in Southern California may have prevented Om from winning the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar on Nov. 28.
Trainer Dan Hendricks recalled on Sunday that the trailer carrying Om to Del Mar two days before the race was stuck in a traffic jam. A trip that normally takes a little more than two hours took five. As a result, Om was not schooled in the paddock and did not have an ideal preparation, Hendricks said.
“He was wound up,” Hendricks said.
ARCADIA, Calif. - About 12 hours after Runhappy won his fourth consecutive stakes in Saturday’s Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita, trainer Laura Wohlers opened her cell phone to check on the crack sprinter.
Through an app that provided pictures from Runhappy’s stall on the backstretch, Wohlers zoomed in on the feed tub. The photo showed nothing, which was what Wohlers wanted to see. Runhappy finished his overnight meal after winning his sixth consecutive race.
CYPRESS, Calif. – California Chrome worked seven furlongs in 1:25.40 Sunday at Los Alamitos, the first time jockey Victor Espinoza had been aboard the colt since a second-place finish in the $10 million Dubai World Cup last March.
Espinoza found himself doing a bit more than expected to encourage California Chrome in the final furlong Sunday. Working with stablemate Unusually Big, California Chrome started three lengths behind, drew alongside in the stretch, and was urged late to draw away.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The country’s top 2-year-old filly took one small step toward a comeback Saturday at Santa Anita, while another promising 2-year-old filly took a step backward.
The undefeated Songbird posted her first workout on the comeback trail, working an easy three furlongs for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.
Meanwhile, stakes winner Lucky Folie came down with a temperature that will force her to miss a scheduled start next weekend.
