FRANKLIN, Ky. – Jockey Florent Geroux was on his way to winning for the fifth time Saturday at Kentucky Downs when race-caller John Lies excitedly asked: “How do you say high five in French?”
The strict translation is haute cinq, but with yet another huge day in the books for Geroux, a 29-year-old native of France, the next question is: How do you say encore in French?
(Trick question: Encore is a French word.)
The first two weeks of the Parx Fall Festival have featured some strong performances, and rapidly approaching is the Sept. 19 highlight of the meet, a five-stakes card topped by the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby and Grade 1 Cotillion.
So far, we have seen Social Inclusion score by 11 3/4 lengths in his debut for local trainer Juan Carlos Guerrero in a second-level optional-claiming race. That race should set him up for the $150,000 Bayern Stakes on the Pa. Derby undercard.
Maryland trainer Wayne Potts won his first career training title at Timonium, winning five races at the seven-day meet and defeating Kieron Magee and Kevin Patterson by one winner. The Timonium meet ran from Aug. 28-Sept. 7.
There was a tie in the rider standings with Gerald Almodovar and Travis Dunkelberger each winning seven races.
Maryland racing switches back to Laurel Park on Saturday, when four stakes will be run. The Laurel meet will run three days a week through the end of the year.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Del Mar’s summer meeting ended on Monday showing a gain in overall handle, owing to four more racing days than a year ago, but the year-to-year daily averages for both attendance and handle, especially ontrack, slipped.
That is the second straight year that has happened, so while Joe Harper, the track’s president and chief executive, on Monday said he was “not disappointed” and that the “numbers are almost what we predicted,” he did concede that he and upper-level executives are going to examine all of aspects of the track’s operation.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin ran Cavorting in Sunday’s Grade 2 Prioress four weeks after she won the Grade 1 Test, and it worked out perfectly as Cavorting won the $300,000 Prioress by two lengths.
That effort, for which she earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure, will be Cavorting’s last race before the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.
“It worked out great,” McLaughlin said Monday. “Now, we have time until the Breeders’ Cup. She does well with time. I just wish the Breeders’ Cup was at Saratoga.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Sticksstatelydude, who had to scratch from Monday’s Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga after developing a temperature, will be pointed to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity on Oct. 3 at Keeneland, trainer Greg Burchell said Monday.
Burchell was very much looking forward to running Sticksstatelydude in the Hopeful, but the colt developed a temperature Sunday night. The horse could not run in the Hopeful because he was treated with antibiotics.
“Within an hour after we treated him, the temperature was gone and he ate up in 10 minutes,” Burchell said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After three dark days on this circuit, Belmont Park opens its 38-day meet Friday with a nine-race card topped by the $100,000 Christiecat Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs on the turf.
A field of 11 was entered in the Christiecat, topped by Miss Ella, a Grade 2 stakes winner on dirt who finished second to Lady Shipman in the Coronation Cup on turf here Aug. 3. Lady Shipman came back to win the Smart N Fancy Stakes, her fourth consecutive victory and eighth in 10 career starts.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It is not a certainty, but Frosted is being considered for the Grade 2, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 19 at Parx Racing, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Monday.
“We’re not sure at all, but it’s on the radar,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin is trying to figure out the best way to get Frosted to the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland. One option is to train up to that race. A second option is to run in the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup on Oct. 3 at Belmont Park.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Corey Nakatani has been suspended for one day, Oct. 2, for repeated violations of a whip abuse rule enacted in July, according to a ruling issued by Del Mar stewards Saturday.
Nakatani is the first rider in Southern California to be given a suspension for violating the rule.
