A record was quietly established last weekend at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky when Tribal Custom won a starter allowance by eight lengths. The Dec. 27 victory was the 12th of the year for Tribal Custom, giving the mare the most wins for any horse in North America in 2015.
“I feel very fortunate to have her,” said 27-year-old trainer Elliot Sullivan. “I can’t say enough good things about her. She’s been pretty flawless.”
Trainer Kieron Magee and jockey Jevian Toledo won their respective divisions at the Laurel Park meet, which concluded Thursday.
Magee, 54, won a race closing day to break a tie with Claudio Gonzalez and take the title, 24-23. Earlier in the year, he tied with Mike Trombetta as leading trainer at the Laurel summer meet with eight wins and was second to Jamie Ness at the Pimlico session.
Magee won 65 races at the Maryland Jockey Club tracks in 2015, more than any other trainer.
Maryland rider Sheldon Russell recently began therapy on his shoulder, which he injured in a Nov. 9 training accident. Russell tore his labrum in two places and fractured his shoulder.
This has been a star-crossed year for Russell, who won the riding title at the Laurel Park winter-spring meet and the 1,000th race of his career in March. He missed three months after breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung in an April spill at Pimlico. He was then back a little more than three months before hurting his shoulder.
Trainer Ramon Preciado had a career year in 2015, winning 172 races from 569 starts, a win average of 30 percent. Preciado’s horses earned more than $5.6 million.
Those figures easily bettered his previous-best 2014 season, when he won 137 races and $3.5 million in purses. Preciado repeated this year as the leading trainer at Parx Racing, where he is based.
In many professions, a year like that would be cause for celebration. But Preciado, while acknowledging he was happy with his 2015 results, is already focused on keeping his momentum going in 2016.
NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Wes Hawley, who over the years has adeptly managed mainly claiming stock, is at it again this season. Hawley, who won with six of his first 27 starters at the meet, is 4 for 12 since Dec. 19, with all four of those winners in claiming company.
Two of those winners – the filly Missysway and the gelding Titans Heart – were debuting as 2-year-olds, Missysway for a $30,000 price and Titans Heart for $25,000. Hawley ran the Louisiana-bred gelding K One Kobra in open $5,000 company Dec. 21, and he paid $32 for winning that six-furlong sprint.
NEW ORLEANS - Because Arlington Million winner The Pizza Man went off his feed for three days here recently, trainer Roger Brueggemann decided against sending him to Santa Anita for Saturday’s San Gabriel.
Brueggemann said Tuesday that the Pizza Man didn’t have a fever and hadn’t missed any training.
“He just wasn’t 100 percent,” Brueggemann said. “I’d rather take my time and have him 100 percent.”
OLDSMAR, Fla. – El Grande Rojo has run in only one stakes race during his 44-race career, but he sure looked like a stakes winner Wednesday at Tampa Bay Downs, tying the track record for seven furlongs and scoring a seven-length victory in a second-level optional $32,000 claimer.
NEW ORLEANS – Last summer, veteran jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. came out of nowhere to win the riding title at Arlington Park.
Valdivia won 80 races from 370 mounts there – a 180-degree turnaround from a winter meet at Gulfstream Park that couldn’t have turned colder for him. Set back by a broken fibula sustained in October 2014, Valdivia was unable to get his business going late that year and early in 2015, and he wound up with only three wins from 105 mounts at that Gulfstream meet.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Paulina’s Love will be considered for the $200,000 Buena Vista Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf after winning an optional claimer in Wednesday’s seventh race.
Ridden by Gary Stevens, Paulina’s Love always was near the pace and drew off late to win by a convincing 3 1/2 lengths over the English import Nancy from Nairobi. The key to victory was a break of more than 10 weeks between starts, said David Meah, assistant to trainer Richard Baltas.
“I think the extra time between races really helps her,” said Meah.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sunday Rules won her third stakes but her first against open company Wednesday in the $98,850 Kalookan Queen Stakes for female sprinters at Santa Anita. The win might lead to a return to the statebred division or an attempt at a first graded stakes win in late January.
On Thursday, trainer Phil D’Amato said he is considering the Grade 2, $200,000 Santa Monica Stakes for fillies and mares at seven furlongs on dirt Jan. 23 or the $150,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint for California-bred females on the hillside turf course Jan. 30.
