Alert Bay will seek his fourth straight victory next Friday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar, a 1 1/16-mile grass race for older horses that was known as the Citation when it was run at Hollywood Park.
Alert Bay, trained by Blaine Wright, scored the biggest win of his current streak in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita in September.
Lottie ran too good to lose in her debut at Keeneland, earning a Beyer Speed Figure that would win most maiden races, and she figures to be a strong favorite in Sunday’s final race at Del Mar, a one-mile grass race for 2-year-old maiden fillies.
Lottie, by Arch, finished furiously and wound up in a dead heat for third in her debut Oct. 8. She got an 84 Beyer, more than 20 points higher than anyone else in this race has earned.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Sunday Rules, a winner of five of her first six starts, will try a new distance and surface when she competes in a third-level optional $100,000 claiming race to kick off the Sunday card at Del Mar.
Now age 4, Sunday Rules won twice here on the old Polytrack course as a 2-year-old, including a victory in the Generous Portion Stakes for California-bred fillies, and she won another statebred stakes at Santa Anita this year. Her perfect record ended in her last start, when she was third in the Grade 2 Great Lady M. at Los Alamitos.
Departing is a major coup for the $250,000 Delta Mile. The earner of $1.7 million lends star power to the race, which is one of seven stakes supporting the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot on Saturday.
The Mile, for 3-year-olds and up, goes with a field of eight, including Rise Up, the winner of the Jackpot in 2013, and Cougar Ridge, attempting to win his fourth straight race.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Irish import Jeremy’s Legacy, purchased for a partnership and making her U.S. debut Saturday in race 6 for trainer Doug O’Neill, must overcome the outside post in a field of 11 if she is to prevail in the one-mile grass race.
“It’s a terrible post, but having [jockey Rafael] Bejarano is a huge plus,” said O’Neill. “If she’s not seven wide going into the first turn, she’s got a big chance.”
Jeremy’s Legacy ran twice in Ireland before being acquired by her current connections.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Being based in Chicago, The Pizza Man’s favorite style probably is deep dish, but he will try to make California his pizza kitchen on Thanksgiving Day, when he makes a return visit to Del Mar for the Grade 2, $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup on Thursday.
The Pizza Man managed to finish only third in the Turf Cup last year, but he is a far better horse this year, highlighted by his victory in the Arlington Million and a narrow loss in the Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland. He most recently finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland.
Jockey Victor Espinoza, who guided American Pharoah to wins in the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland this year, is one of 12 jockeys set to participate in the Longines International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong on Dec. 9.
Espinoza, who finished second in the event in 2003, is the only jockey from North America in the four-race contest.
Jockey Flavien Prat is hoping to resume riding Dec. 26, opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, more than three months after injuring his back in a two-horse spill at Los Alamitos.
On Wednesday, Prat said he had started physical therapy in the last week. After the Sept. 17 riding accident, in which he fractured five vertebrae, Prat was told by doctors he would need three months’ rest before beginning therapy and likely wouldn’t be able to ride until late winter.
Trainer Larry Jones, unlike many outfits that spent the early autumn in Kentucky, already has shipped his entire string to Fair Grounds to prepare for the meet.
“Once we got out of Keeneland after the Breeders’ Cup, we took it all down here,” Jones said. “We’ve got 44 stabled here as of this morning.”
The fields for Zia Park’s most prestigious races were drawn Tuesday, with Breeders’ Cup Distaff starter Calamity Kate headlining the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks and International Star set to make his first start since March in the $200,000 Zia Park Derby. The races will be part of a program of eight stakes this coming Wednesday.
