Catch a Flight, the winner of the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar in July, is scheduled to undergo a nuclear scan on Tuesday to determine the cause of body soreness that kept him from a start in Saturday’s $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita.
“Something is not right,” trainer Richard Mandella said. “We’ll see if the scan can tell us something that we don’t know. I don’t want to take a chance on something creeping up on him.”
AUBURN, Wash. – The events that brought Julien Couton to Emerald Downs began Sept. 6, 2014, the day he was arrested in California on charges of domestic violence against his girlfriend. Over the following six months, Couton spent 16 days in a Los Angeles jail and countless hours before the California Horse Racing Board before criminal charges were dropped this spring. By then, the damage to his reputation in Southern California, self-inflicted as it may have been, was irreparable.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – There will be more space needed than usual when the annual Thoroughbred Awards Dinner for Hastings is held at the Newlands Golf and Country Club on Dec. 3. The extra room will be needed to accommodate some of the 200 members of the Hastings Racing Club.
One of the horses the club owns, Square Dancer, wrapped up older-handicap-division honors with a win in the $50,000 S.W. Randall Plate on Sept. 13. The club allows members to own a small piece of a horse after paying their $250 annual membership fee.
ARCADIA, Calif. – For Ashleyluvssugar to advance to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland on Oct. 31, a win in Sunday’s $75,000 King Pellinore Stakes at Santa Anita is a must.
And not just any win. Ashleyluvssugar needs to give a flashy performance.
“I think we need to see a big performance,” trainer Peter Eurton said on Friday. “There are too many tough horses coming from Europe. A mediocre performance will not work. You have to come up with a lot of dough to run in it.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Florent Geroux will be competing on a regular basis at Keeneland after traveling extensively over the last couple of months when using Arlington Park and Churchill Downs as his bases.
Few jockeys have enjoyed more success during the last eight weeks than Geroux. Since Aug. 1, he has won eight stakes, including a pair of seven-figure races – the Arlington Million and Cotillion – and he set a Kentucky Downs record for mount earnings (nearly $1.2 million).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jesus Castanon is named on two mounts Sunday at Churchill as the veteran jockey returns from a layoff forced by a tailbone injury that resulted from an Aug. 16 spill at Ellis Park. Castanon, best known for his victory on Shackleford in the 2011 Preakness, also missed eight weeks earlier this year with a similar injury.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A rare matchup of Kentucky Oaks winners is among the many highlights in store for racing fans when the first Breeders’ Cup meet at Keeneland gets away to a flying start next Friday, Oct. 2, in Lexington, Ky.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The Grade 1 Champagne is not being run Sunday. It just feels that way.
Three of the top juveniles to run this summer at Saratoga were New York-breds, and all three – Championofthenile, Get Jets, and Sudden Surprise – are entered and expected to run in Sunday’s $150,000 Bertram F. Bongard Stakes going seven furlongs at Belmont Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Embellish the Lace, the winner of the Grade 1 Alabama, came out of her fifth-place finish in last Saturday’s Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx with an injury and will not make the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, trainer Tony Dutrow said Thursday.
Instead, Embellish the Lace will be offered for sale at the Fasig-Tipton November sale.
“She has an injury that will keep her out of the Breeders’ Cup,” said Dutrow, who declined to disclose the injury. “She could be rehabbed and brought back to the races, but [owner Alex Lieblong] has chosen not to do that.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – By virtue of his track-record performance in the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga this month, Ironicus emerged as a top contender for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Mile. Unfortunately, Ironicus will miss the Breeders’ Cup after fracturing the cannon bone of his right foreleg, trainer Shug McGaughey said Thursday.
McGaughey said Ironicus would undergo surgery to have one screw inserted into the bone to stabilize the injury and promote healing. McGaughey said Ironicus would need at least 60 days off but will be pointed to a 5-year-old campaign next year.
