DEL MAR, Calif. – A pair of Bob Baffert-trained stakes winners are nearing returns to action. Midnight Hawk, who won the 2014 Sham Stakes, worked seven furlongs from the gate at Santa Anita in 1:27.40 on Thursday as he nears his first start since March, when he finished second in the Razorback at Oaklawn Park.
Baffert said Midnight Hawk is very close to running.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said that Shared Belief, idle since being injured in April in the Charles Town Classic, is being brought along slowly in his training at Golden Gate Fields, where the gelding recently returned after rehabbing at the Pegasus facility in Washington.
“He’s galloping, but he’s not ready to breeze yet,” Hollendorfer said.
Shared Belief was the champion 2-year-old male of 2013. He has won 10 of 12 starts, five Grade 1 races, and nearly $3 million.
DEL MAR, Calif. – There always have been high hopes for Seattle Serenade. It goes with the territory for horses who cost $1 million as yearlings. But until Thursday, Seattle Serenade had endured minor setbacks that prevented him from getting to the races.
The wait sure looked worth it, though, when Seattle Serenade finally debuted, as the 3-year-old colt scored a fast win against maidens at Del Mar while earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 88, prevailing by a half-length over the well-bred Statesman, who was 11 1/2 lengths clear of the next horse.
A boost in the purse of the Santa Margarita Stakes and the return of the San Juan Capistrano to its former April position are a couple of the tweaks made to the power-packed stakes schedule at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, which features eight Grade 1 races and runs from Dec. 26 through April 10.
The last Grade 1 races of the year for 2-year-olds highlight the December meeting at Los Alamitos, a, three-week, 12-day run that begins Dec. 3 and closes Dec. 20.
The $350,000 Los Alamitos Futurity on Dec. 19 is the richest race of the meet and proved significant in its first running at Los Alamitos last year, with Dortmund defeating Firing Line and Mr. Z. in a thriller. All went on to be important 3-year-olds in 2015.
The venerable Saint Leon, a two-time winner of the Arlington Sprint, died suddenly early Tuesday after being stricken with internal distress.
Saint Leon had been sent Sunday from Hawthorne for a winter break at a northern Illinois farm. On Tuesday morning, Monique Cameron, the farm operator, called trainer Michele Boyce and said Saint Leon was found down in his stall, unable to rise, when the time came for morning turnout.
STICKNEY, Ill. – Chris Emigh has won nine riding titles, but the most recent of them came in 2006, and at 44, supposedly on the down slope of a long and successful career in the saddle, Emigh’s name didn’t figure to light the top of a meet-long leaderboard ever again. Yet roughly halfway through the Hawthorne fall-winter season, there’s Emigh, perched atop the jockey standings, his 27 wins through Wednesday eight better than Tim Thornton and Santo Sanjur.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Mac Daddy Mac is one of the top contenders Saturday in race 8, the Bob Hope Stakes. The very next race, the last of the day, includes Watch My Dust, who ran second to Mac Daddy Mac, and Drefong, who was fifth as the favorite, when all three were making their debuts Oct. 24 at Santa Anita.
Of the 14 2-year-olds entered in the six-furlong finale on Saturday, nine have yet to race. Peter Miller trains two of them – Eric the Trojan and Triple Clown – but said he might end up scratching Triple Clown.
“I think he’s a couple of works short,” Miller said Thursday.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Donworth, the winner of the Stanton Stakes at Delaware Park and the runner-up in the Grade 3 Lexington at Keeneland earlier this year, will join trainer Doug O’Neill’s barn this weekend after being acquired this past week at the Keeneland November sale.
Donworth, a son of Tiznow, was purchased for $550,000 by O’Neill’s brother, Dennis, on behalf of owner Paul Reddam. As a 3-year-old with just four career starts, Donworth has plenty of upside going into his 4-year-old year, Dennis O’Neill said.
