ARCADIA, Calif. – Gimme Da Lute, a winner of four consecutive stakes from early June to late August, worked five furlongs in 1:01.20 on Thursday at Santa Anita.
Trainer Bob Baffert said he does not have a race goal for Gimme Da Lute, who races for Jim Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman. Gimme Da Lute has won 6 of 9 starts and earned $627,560.
“There are a lot of options,” Baffert said.
MIAMI – Opening day of the 2015 Gulfstream Park West meet was deemed a big success by track management, with all-sources handle up 87 percent over the inaugural meeting held under Gulfstream Park auspices at the track formerly known as Calder Race Course last year. Total handle on Wednesday’s 10-race card was $2.4 million.
MIAMI – With little separation between at least a half-dozen members of the field, at least from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint, bettors may want to look for value rather than choosing the obvious favorites in Saturday’s $50,000 turf-allowance feature at Gulfstream Park West.
Perfect Step, who put a punctuation mark on her current four-race win streak by taking an overnight stakes in her most recent start, and the versatile Katie’s Kiss likely will vie for favoritism in the five-furlong dash for fillies and mares.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – For a race as prestigious as the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, its next-race impact on the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf has been negligible. Often, a filly or two per year has ventured on to the Breeders’ Cup, but the group has done little once there.
One Queen Elizabeth II winner, Perfect Sting, won the 2000 BC Filly and Mare Turf the year after she won the 1999 QE II, but her performance in the Breeders’ Cup during the year of her QE II triumph resulted in a sixth-place finish.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Legendary will return to his favorite surface when he seeks a repeat in Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Knickerbocker Stakes at Belmont Park.
Legendary is 6 for 25 in his career but is 3 for 4 at Belmont Park, where in 2014 he won two allowance races during the spring-summer meet and the Knickerbocker at the fall meet at 4-1 in a six-horse field. Though he beat Up With the Birds and Mshawish that day, he faces a deeper group Saturday, including All Included, Mr Speaker, Messi, and War Dancer.
ELMONT, N.Y. – By electing not to run Tap to It in between her second-place finish in the Grade 1 Spinaway on Sept. 5 and the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 31, trainer Ralph Nicks needs the filly to get in some solid training during the morning.
On Wednesday, Tap to It put in a very solid-looking workout, drilling seven furlongs in 1:23.86 over Belmont Park’s main track under jockey Joel Rosario.
When Beholder tries to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland, it will be an especially big deal since Zenyatta in 2009 remains the only female Classic winner. Females in the Breeders’ Cup Mile? That’s old hat. A filly or mare has won eight of the 31 Miles, and it could happen again in 2015.
The Bret Calhoun trainees Cash Bonus and Better Than Magic ran one-two in the El Joven, with Cash Bonus proving a head best while winning in 1:38.30. Calhoun said both horses are now candidates for the $250,000 Springboard Mile on Dec. 13 at Remington Park.
Cash Bonus, who races for Carl Moore, won an optional-claiming sprint at Remington one start prior to the El Joven. Calhoun said the horse is now being pointed for the $100,000 Clever Trevor, a seven-furlong race Nov. 6 at Remington. The race is designed as a stepping-stone to the Springboard Mile.
Doug Scharbauer and trainer Bret Calhoun appear to have a quality two-turn filly on their hands in More Than Most, who is being considered for next month’s Grade 2 Golden Rod at Churchill Downs. She won her second straight race last Saturday in the La Senorita Stakes at Retama Park, where she covered a mile on turf quicker than her male counterparts in that night’s El Joven Stakes.
“Right now, we don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Calhoun.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – History of a sort will be made Friday with the running of the seventh race, a $64,000 optional claimer for 3-year-olds and up: It’s the first one-mile race on the Keeneland main track.
The race is essentially a road test prior to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Oct. 30. With the 1 1/16-mile circumference of its main track, Keeneland never has contested races at a mile because of the short run into the first turn.
