LEXINGTON, Ky. – Several prominent horses landed potentially tricky posts when 11 of the 13 Breeders’ Cup races to be run Friday and Saturday at Keeneland were drawn early Monday afternoon, including Karakontie, who will again have to overcome an outside draw if he is to repeat in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and Nyquist, who will have to start from post 13 in a bid to remain undefeated in the Juvenile.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With American Pharoah completing his serious training for the Breeders’ Cup Classic in California, BEHOLDER has commanded the most attention at Keeneland since her arrival from the West Coast a week ago. Her much-anticipated final work for the Classic came here Monday, and the popular mare did not disappoint her legion of fans while headlining a list of 15 potential Breeders’ Cup starters who breezed over the dirt and turf throughout the morning.
Piggybacking on the Breeders’ Cup, Belmont Park will run both the Grade 3, $200,000 Turnback the Alarm and the $100,000 Awad on Friday. The Turnback the Alarm, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares, has drawn a field of nine. Favoritism likely will go to either Delightful Joy or Pangburn.
Delightful Joy, a 3-year-old trained by Chad Brown, has won two races in a row. She rallied from well back to defeat 10 rivals in the $100,000 Monmouth Oaks in her last start Aug. 22. Prior to that, she won a first-level allowance over older rivals at Belmont.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Likely favorite Cavorting was assigned the far outside post in a full gate of 14 when entries were drawn Monday at Keeneland for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
Cavorting will be coming off victories in the Grade 1 Test and Grade 2 Prioress when trying to buck history for Stonestreet Stables and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. Irad Ortiz Jr. will be back aboard for the seven-furlong Filly and Mare Sprint, which goes as the fifth of 12 Saturday races (post time, 1:25 p.m. Eastern).
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita ended its 19-day autumn meeting with declines in average all-sources and ontrack handle and an increase in attendance, according to a track official.
All-sources average handle was down 4 percent to $8,213,323, while ontrack handle was down 7 percent. Average attendance increased by 14 percent to 6,214. The track did not publish extensive business data.
The attendance figures were boosted to some extent by a Latin music concert Sunday that contributed to a crowd of 12,362 compared with 5,555 on the corresponding Sunday in 2014.
Both daily and total all-sources mutuel handle at the Northlands Park meet this year showed increases from last year. The 2015 season at the Edmonton, Alberta, racetrack ran from May 1 through Oct.24.
A total of $21,475,337 was wagered over 75 days this year at Northlands Park, a 7 percent increase over the 2014 total, which was bet over 73 days. On one day this year, the races were canceled after the first two races due to unsafe track conditions.
The average of $286,337 was up by 4 percent compared to last year’s average.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – What happened to Corey Lanerie this summer at Saratoga will always remain a mystery – especially to Lanerie himself.
Lanerie went winless from 57 mounts at the Spa in an extended slump rendered even more peculiar by the way he dominated the regular Keeneland fall meet that ended Saturday.
Getting blanked at Saratoga “sure was hard to deal with,” said Lanerie. “It hurts your confidence and makes you start to think, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ But I’ll tell ya, this meet sure makes up for Saratoga.”
Four months after the chaotic opening day of the Del Mar summer meeting, the popular San Diego racetrack will launch its 20-day autumn meeting Thursday in a more tranquil setting.
Instead of more than 40,000 people crammed throughout the seaside venue, the audience Thursday will be closer to the 11,513 who attended opening day of the 2014 autumn meeting on a Friday.
“It’s a different kind of meet,” said track president Joe Harper. “It’s more locals. It’s still an opening that draws a lot of people.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Dancing Brave might as well have come to Santa Anita in 1986 for the third edition of the Breeders’ Cup Turf with a cluster of footmen and butlers stationed outside his stall. Royalty – that’s what the 3-year-old colt looked like, his bitter defeat in the Epsom Derby having given way to a blistering romp in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the official performance rating of which (141) cast Dancing Brave in an epic light.
