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.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder missed the finish of the racing season, but she will not miss 2016. The two-time champion, unbeaten in 2015, will return to Santa Anita in mid-January to prepare for a 6-year-old campaign that ideally will conclude in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.
Beholder scratched from the 2015 BC Classic at Keeneland after she bled in a routine gallop days before. She currently is stabled at Peacefield Farm in Temecula, 70 miles southeast of Santa Anita.
Trainer Richard Mandella is in no rush to crank her up.
NEW ORLEANS – Chocolate Ride, the top turf horse in trainer Brad Cox’s barn, breezed a half-mile in 50 seconds Dec. 19 and is progressing nicely toward the Grade 3 Col. E.R. Bradley Handicap on Jan. 16, Cox said.
Chocolate Ride, who won the Grade 2 Mervin H. Muniz Memorial in March at Fair Grounds, began this current local season with an optional-claiming victory Nov. 27. He was racing for the first time since finishing eighth in the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic on May 2 at Churchill Downs. After that race, he was sidelined with hock issues.
