East Hall will be coming off one of his strongest races of the year next month when he goes in the $75,000 Fort Loudon at Gulfstream Park. Trainer Bill Kaplan said Monday that the Oct. 3 race is the goal for the horse. East Hall earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 92 on Saturday after he closed in the slop for an authoritative win in the $75,000 Sensitive Prince at Gulfstream.
“We’ll try to stay here and win another one,” said Kaplan, who trains East Hall for Jack Hendricks and Roger Justice.
Terre Noire will attempt to win her seventh straight race Wednesday at Louisiana Downs. She is in the sixth race on a nine-race card that ushers in the final week of the meet. The first-level, $22,000 allowance is for fillies and mares over 7 1/2 furlongs on turf and drew a field of 13.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Victoria Park Stakes winner Billy’s Star will make his graded stakes debut Sunday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Derby, trainer Roger Attfield said.
Billy’s Star captured his first stakes victory Aug. 23, making a five-wide move into the stretch under jockey Eurico Da Silva to win the Victoria Park by 1 1/4 lengths. Attfield said all four of the horse’s Polytrack starts this season, including his maiden win in May, a sixth-place finish in the Plate Trial in June, and a fourth-place finish July 5 in the Queen’s Plate, have been strong.
BOSSIER CITY, La .- The road Mobile Bay will go down following his career-best win Saturday in the Grade 2, $400,000 Super Derby is to be determined, but he did emerge from the race in good order, trainer Victor Arceneaux said on Sunday.
The Super Derby was the highlight of a card of seven stakes at Louisiana Downs. Mobile Bay picked up his first graded win in the race, and for his 2 1/4-length victory earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 93.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Honor Code and Tonalist finished first and second in the Metropolitan Handicap and first and third in the Whitney Stakes. Before they are expected to meet again in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, both horses will go their separate ways for their next starts.
Honor Code will run in the Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap going a mile, while Tonalist will run in the Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes, a race he won last year. Both races are scheduled for Oct. 3 at Belmont Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Upstart and Madefromlucky, two of the top contenders for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing, worked Saturday in New York.
The 1 1/8-mile Pennsylvania Derby will be run next Saturday.
Upstart, the winner of the Grade 2 Holy Bull last winter, has finished fourth in the Travers and third in the Haskell Invitational in his two most recent races.
Madefromlucky won the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby last time out Aug. 1. He accounted for the Grade 2 Peter Pan in May at Belmont.
Following heavy afternoon rain on an already saturated turf course, Kentucky Downs announced Friday evening it would postpone Saturday’s 10-race Kentucky Cup card until Monday.
This marks the second time this week that rain has wreaked havoc on the all-turf European style course at Kentucky Downs, which has hills and valleys that can cause slippery or boggy conditions in low portions of the course following rainstorms. The track, located in Franklin, Ky., had been forced to cancel racing Thursday after two races when jockeys deemed the course unsafe after Wednesday storms.
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. – A quintet of Doug O’Neill-trained 2-year-olds will spread across the country this fall as they move closer to the Breeders’ Cup.
As of Friday, O’Neill had five juveniles with Breeders’ Cup aspirations, led by Grade 1 winners Nyquist and Ralis. Both colts went back to the track Friday morning at Santa Anita, four days after winning Grade 1’s in California and New York.
Between races Friday at Los Alamitos, O’Neill mapped out tentative campaigns for the 2-year-olds and two older horses that could end up in the Breeders’ Cup.
Kentucky Downs will add three races to each of its last two programs Sept. 16 and 19 to make up for some of the races lost Thursday to yet another cancellation at the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky. Each of those cards will feature 13 races, and first post will be 12:05 p.m. Central, 90 minutes earlier than usual.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Giving closest chase to Runhappy in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga was another 3-year-old colt whose most recent start had come at Ellis Park.
In just his third career start, Limousine Liberal was making his stakes debut when finishing second, four lengths behind Runhappy and two lengths ahead of third-place Holy Boss, in the Aug. 29 race. Trainer Ben Colebrook was pleased with the outcome.
