Lady Sabelia returned from a five-month layoff with a vengeance Sunday at Belmont Park, winning the $100,000 Pumpkin Pie Stakes by more than seven lengths. The return to form was striking, as her final two races of the spring had not been up to par.
Lady Sabelia came into her own during the second half of 2014. When she scored her biggest career victory last February in the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel Park, it was her sixth win from her previous seven starts.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Ty Kennedy needed little coaxing to relocate at the end of the summer.
The 21-year-old apprentice had just arrived at Remington Park from Prairie Meadows for the late-summer and fall meeting when agent Mark North suggested a move to California. Not long after that, Kennedy was headed west.
“I consider this the land of opportunity,” Kennedy said on a recent morning. “I figured why not? At home, you watch these races on TV, and you want to be here.”
California Chrome is nearing the first workout of his comeback.
Trainer Art Sherman said on Wednesday that California Chrome might breeze a quarter-mile on Saturday at Los Alamitos, where the 2014 Horse of the Year has been training for nearly a month. California Chrome returned to Sherman’s stable in early October after a three-month rest at a Kentucky farm.
“He’s doing good, and he’s training on the bit,” Sherman said. “We’ll probably go a quarter in 25 [seconds]. He’s training pretty aggressively. He’s getting with the program.”
Favorite Tale’s long, complicated journey through the Breeders’ Cup ended Tuesday when he arrived home safely at trainer Lupe Preciado’s barn at Parx Racing.
Despite having earned a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by virtue of his victory in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint, Favorite Tale came close to missing the Breeders’ Cup after horses were prevented from leaving Parx due to an equine herpesvirus quarantine. Once at Keeneland, Favorite Tale proved he belonged by finishing third to Runhappy and Private Zone, beaten 1 3/4 lengths.
The Monmouth at Meadowlands all-turf meet, which concluded Saturday, showed a 19 percent gain in average daily handle over 2014, according to figures released by Monmouth Park on Tuesday.
The 10 days of this year’s meet had daily average handle of $1,235,522, compared to last season’s average of $1,038,747, when eight cards were held. Six races per day were run both years.
In 2013, daily average handle at the meet was $988,547. Nine six-race cards were held that year.
Florent Geroux’s breakthrough year continues unabated. In addition to winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Catch a Glimpse and the Turf Sprint aboard Mongolian Saturday, the 29-year-old Frenchman won the Fort Springs Stakes aboard 10-1 shot Meshell as darkness began to envelop Keeneland on Breeders’ Cup Saturday.
Mark Casse was the focus of one of the many great stories from the two-day Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, breaking his career-long Breeders’ Cup drought by winning the Juvenile Fillies Turf with Catch a Glimpse and the Mile with Tepin.
“I got about 130 text messages and voice mails,” Casse said Monday as things finally began to calm down. “It was crazy good.”
Uzziel, who was vanned from the winner’s circle to the backstretch Sunday after winning the $200,250 Goldikova Stakes at Del Mar, was “still a little off” in a foreleg Monday, said trainer Keith Desormeaux.
Desormeaux emphasized that Uzziel’s lameness was minor and said a diagnosis will be made in the coming days whether she can race again at Del Mar this month or if she needs to be given a break.
“We’ll have to analyze it during the week,” he said.
Del Mar struggled to attract ontrack business from Thursday through Sunday for the opening week of its autumn meeting but benefited from strong all-sources handle helped by simulcasts of the Breeders’ Cup races from Kentucky.
According to figures released on a nightly basis, Del Mar had an average attendance of 4,476 for the first four days of the meeting. The Thursday opening-day card attracted 6,144, far below the 11,515 who attended the opening day of the 2014 autumn meeting, which was held on a Friday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Melmich and Pender Harbour ran one-two Sept. 2 in the Elgin Stakes and will face each other again in the Thursday feature at Woodbine, a 1 5/8-mile allowance on Polytrack that serves as the local prep for the Grade 3, $150,000 Valedictory Stakes on the meet’s closing day, Nov. 29.
