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.
Apprentice David Lopez, who leads Golden Gate Fields jockeys with 14 victories at the fall meet, will begin riding at Del Mar on Friday.
His agent, Dennis Patterson, has three mounts lined up for Friday and one Saturday.
The 26-year-old Lopez, who finished fourth in the Golden Gate standings in the winter-spring meet, had planned to move to Southern California last June but suffered fractures in his back in an accident that sidelined him until opening day of the Golden Gate fall meet on Oct. 22.
Ivan Fallunovalot, who rose to prominence last season at Oaklawn, could make his next start at the Arkansas track that opens in January. Ivan Fallunovalot was back at his Remington Park base Monday after running in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland. He finished ninth, 6 1/2 lengths behind winner Runhappy.
Tom Howard, who trains Ivan Fallunovalot, said the horse emerged from the Breeders’ Cup with a cut on his left front ankle. It led to swelling that had subsided by Tuesday.
Jockey Don Simington said he probably will miss the remainder of the Delta Downs meet as he continues to recover from severe injuries sustained in an Oct. 29 spill. Delta has just begun its Thoroughbred meet that extends into March.
Simington’s mount was on the lead in a claiming sprint when she broke down and he was thrown, as were three other riders in a chain-reaction incident. Simington, 52, suffered the most significant injuries and remained at an Alexandria, La., hospital on Wednesday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Madefromlucky and Tommy Macho put in a solid five-furlong workout in 1:00.60 in company Wednesday morning over Belmont Park’s training track in preparation for next Wednesday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Discovery Handicap for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct.
Madefromlucky, working on the inside under John Velazquez, and Tommy Macho, working on the outside under Annie Finney, got their final three furlongs in 35.20 seconds in a move that equaled the fastest of the morning of 14 breezes.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – La Verdad, second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, has returned to training at Belmont Park and could face males in the Grade 2, $250,000 Fall Highweight Handicap at Aqueduct on Nov. 26, trainer Linda Rice said.
Crowley’s Law, second to Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Tepin in the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes at Keeneland last month, has joined Peter Miller’s stable, the trainer said this week.
Miller said he hopes to run Crowley’s Law in the $300,000 Matriarch Stakes, a Grade 1 for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 29. Crowley’s Law, 4, was listed as not sold for $950,000 at the Fasig-Tipton November sale in Kentucky last Sunday. Miller said a partnership is being formed that will own Crowley’s Law.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The turf season is nearing its end on the East Coast, and Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Long Island Handicap is the final graded event for fillies and mares in 2015 on this circuit.
Not surprisingly, trainers Christophe Clement and Chad Brown will be well represented in the 1 1/2-mile race, sending out three runners apiece among the 11 horses entered Wednesday. Ten were entered for turf and one for the main track only.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Retirement can wait.
Those were the words of owner Robert Evans, who confirmed that multiple Grade 1 winner Tonalist will remain in training as a 5-year-old next year and could target the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan in March.
Tonalist finished fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last Saturday at Keeneland. Evans said that Tonalist will aim for the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 28.
“If he could win that it would give him a Grade 1 win at a mile, a mile and a quarter, and a mile and a half,” Evans said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Churchill officials would love to host one final send-off for American Pharoah, but nothing has been decided other than “there will be a public ceremony,” said Justin Zayat, whose family owns the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner.
Zayat said Wednesday via Twitter that he and his father, owner and breeder Ahmed Zayat, have not decided when or where the ceremony will take place and that Churchill “may very well be the place.”
