HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Weather permitting – and that has been the big issue here during opening week of the meet – Ready Dancer finally will get the opportunity to run on the turf when he goes postward the likely favorite in Sunday’s $41,000 allowance feature.
Tommy Macho, the Grade 3 Discovery winner, will likely have five rivals next Saturday at Aqueduct when he runs in the $100,000 Queens County Stakes at 1 1/8 miles.
Expected to face Tommy Macho are Desvelo, Kid Cruz, Perfect Title, and Turco Bravo. Financial Modeling is listed as possible.
Kid Cruz, winner of the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes in 2014, is coming off a second-place finish in the Swatara Stakes at Penn National.
Michael Pino is one of the few new faces on the backstretch this winter, and he is hoping to make enough of an impact during the Aqueduct inner-track meet to warrant keeping a string in New York on a year-round basis.
“I’ve said it for years: I want to try it and the winter seemed like a good time to do it,” Pino said Friday at Belmont Park, where he is stabled in Barn 6.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Winter time is the right time for an apprentice rider with talent to succeed in New York.
So far, it looks like Harry Hernandez fits that bill. Since coming to New York three weeks ago, Hernandez had won six races from 35 mounts entering Friday’s card. Three of those wins have come for David Jacobson, who should compete for leading trainer honors at the meet.
“He’s got a lot more experience than most five-pound bug riders,” Jacobson said. “He really has done a great job. He’s not making too many mistakes.”
Nyquist, the undefeated winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland on Oct. 31, resumed galloping earlier this week and will have a workout before the end of the month.
Trainer Doug O’Neill said Nyquist is likely to have a light workout “down the stretch” at Santa Anita in the days before Christmas. Owned by Paul and Zillah Reddam, Nyquist was given a break in November after the BC Juvenile and resumed training earlier this month.
Firing Line, second in the Kentucky Derby earlier this year and second in the Los Alamitos Futurity last December, is scheduled to return to trainer Simon Callaghan’s stable at Santa Anita on Sunday.
Callaghan said he intends to take a patient approach to the start of Firing Line’s 4-year-old season in 2016.
“We’re not setting any specific targets,” he said. “We’ll take our time, and when the horse is ready we’ll look for a race.”
Callaghan said the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap on March 12 “will be a touch quick.”
CYPRESS, Calif. – A stakes winner on turf, Hollywood Don will switch surfaces and run in his second Grade 1 of the year on dirt in the $300,000 Los Alamitos Futurity on Dec. 19.
From trainer Peter Miller’s perspective, the Los Alamitos Futurity provides an ideal opportunity to see if it’s worth pointing Hollywood Don to dirt stakes for 3-year-olds in 2016.
“We’ll give him a try and see if we can’t turn him into a dirt horse,” Miller said on Friday. “There are no monsters in there as of yet. They could turn out to be. It looks wide open.”
Turfway Park fans who heard Jimmy McNerney call the races Friday night will be hearing more of him this winter as longtime announcer Mike Battaglia nears retiring from the booth. Battaglia, who will turn 66 in February, said this week he is “starting to ease out” of his race-calling duties at the northern Kentucky track, where he has been a fixture since 1972.
McNerney, a longtime jockey agent who became the caller at Ellis Park this past summer, will fill in for Battaglia by calling at least one program a week at Turfway, which runs through April 3.
Missing Sefa, who will turn 14 on Jan. 1, will be pointed to another race in the starter-allowance ranks after beating just one opponent and finishing 20 lengths behind the winner last Sunday at Turfway.
Owner-trainer Jamie Grubbs said this week that Missing Sefa, a winner of 28 races from 112 career starts, “came out of her race great.”
“She loves her job and wants to keep doing it,” Grubbs said. “As long as she’s sound and happy, we’ll be looking for a race.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Leave the Light On won the Grade 2 Remsen in 2014, and he will make his first start since in a second-level optional-claiming race Saturday at Aqueduct.
The race is at a mile and 70 yards and is limited to 10 starters, though 11 were entered. Leave the Light On drew the rail.
Trainer Chad Brown said Leave the Light On initially was off due to an injury for which he “needed extended recovery time.”
The horse then suffered a few setbacks while trying to make it back earlier this year. He shows 11 workouts beginning Sept. 22 through Dec. 5.
