DEL MAR, Calif. – Gimme Da Lute, a 3-year-old multiple stakes winner trained by Bob Baffert, was euthanized this week after he fractured a hind leg coming out of surgery, Baffert said Friday.
Gimme Da Lute worked a half-mile in 46.40 seconds Tuesday at Santa Anita, the best time of 35 works at the distance. Afterward, Baffert said he was “off” back at the barn, and X-rays showed a condylar fracture in a hind leg.
The $350,000 De Francis Memorial Dash is the headliner on a card that will include six stakes next Saturday at Laurel Park. Stakes purses for the day will total $850,000.
The De Francis Dash field was still in flux on Friday, according to Coley Blind, stakes coordinator for the Maryland Jockey Club. He said a number of his best nominees had just raced in the Breeders’ Cup on Oct. 31.
“It depends how quickly those horses recover from their races,” he said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Frivolous has run so well over the main track at Churchill Downs that her connections are seriously considering a run against the boys in the 142nd Clark Handicap as a swan song for the 5-year-old mare.
“Unless the race comes up super-tough, we’re thinking sure, why not take a shot?” said trainer Vicki Oliver. “A lot of the top horses have already retired, and we should get a weight break, too. This will be her last race, so we’d love to send her out in a big way.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Greenpointcrusader, the Grade 1 Champagne winner, came out of his seventh-place finish as the 7-2 favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile with an ulcer in his left eye, according to trainer Dominick Schettino.
The ulcer, likely the result of getting hit in the eye with dirt during the race, was treated with antibiotics and is healing. Greenpointcrusader, who is back at Belmont, is simply walking each morning. He will not run again this year.
Schettino said he didn’t know when Greenpointcrusader got hit in the Juvenile.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Mohaymen came out of his victory in Wednesday’s Nashua Stakes here in good order and likely will make his next start in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct on Nov. 28, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said.
Mohaymen acted up prior to the Nashua but was all business on the track, recording a 1 3/4-length victory in the Nashua, his second from as many starts.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – For nearly a decade starting in the early 1990s, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin would spend half the year training in Dubai and was a three-time leading trainer in that country.
In early 2016, McLaughlin could be headed back to Dubai – at least for a little while. He plans to take a small string there, led by his Grade 1 winner Frosted, who will point to the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 26.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The Grade 1-winning mare My Sweet Addiction has been retired after finishing 13th in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland and will remain in Kentucky to be bred, trainer Marty Jones said Thursday at Del Mar.
My Sweet Addiction led for the first six furlongs of the Distaff before tiring in the final start of a career that saw her win four times in 14 starts. Her most significant victory came in the Grade 1 Vanity at Santa Anita in May. She also finished second in the Grade 1 Zenyatta against Beholder in her final start before the Distaff.
In addition to Big Macher, there were three other Southern California-based runners in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. None is likely to race again this year.
Wild Dude, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Oct. 3, finished sixth, beaten 4 1/2 lengths by the winner, Runhappy. Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Wild Dude is likely to resume racing at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting that begins Dec. 26.
Big John B and Big Macher, stakes winners at Del Mar during the summer, might start later this month in stakes after losses in Breeders’ Cup races at Keeneland last weekend.
Big John B, who finished 10th of 12 in the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf under jockey Rafael Bejarano, is a candidate for the $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup at 1 1/2 miles on Nov. 26, Thanksgiving Day, at Del Mar.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said he is throwing out Big John B’s loss in the Turf, which was the 6-year-old’s first start since a win in the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap in August.
Tampa Bay Downs has scheduled 23 stakes worth a total of $2.7 million for its 2015-16 race meet, essentially the same as the prior meet, but when the Oldsmar, Fla., oval resumes racing Saturday, Nov. 28, the meet will have a slightly different look.
Continuing a trend seen at other tracks, Tampa Bay Downs is grouping multiple stakes races together on several Saturdays to heighten interest for the biggest day of the racing week.
