ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Kent Desormeaux was fined $2,500 by Santa Anita stewards Sunday for being under the influence of alcohol while riding July 29 at Del Mar.
In a one-page ruling, stewards Scott Chaney, Kim Sawyer, and Tom Ward issued the fine and gave Desormeaux a 30-day suspension for the infraction. The suspension will be stayed unless Desormeaux has another violation for an alcohol-related infraction through the term of his current riding license, which runs through Feb. 2, 2018.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Richard Mandella was formulating plans Saturday at Santa Anita for stable star Beholder and potential star Lucky Folie, a 2-year-old filly who won her debut impressively Sept. 6 at Del Mar.
Beholder, who will take on American Pharoah and other males in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31, will ship to Keeneland on Oct. 19, Mandella said. He said Beholder will work twice more at Santa Anita before flying to Kentucky and will have her final work for the BC Classic at Keeneland.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Championofthenile, who finished third as the favorite in last Sunday’s Bertram F. Bongard Stakes for New York-breds here, likely will make his next start in the $200,000 New York Breeders’ Futurity at Finger Lakes on Oct. 17, trainer Linda Rice said Friday.
Championofthenile earned a 94 Beyer Speed Figure when he won a maiden race for New York-breds by six lengths on the front end. In the Bongard, Championofthenile broke outward and found himself off the pace. He couldn’t run down Sudden Surprise, who went gate to wire.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Even as he spends the next few weeks preparing three top contenders for the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin has a lot to look forward to beyond racing’s championship days.
McLaughlin’s high-priced and high-powered-pedigree juvenile crop has started cranking out winners of late, led by the $2.2 million yearling purchase Mohaymen and the $600,000 2-year-old-in-training buy Annual Report.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – As rain came down amid the chill, virtually everyone at Keeneland was hoping that this isn’t the way the month will end.
The fall meet opened Friday with nasty conditions but an upbeat mood: the 32nd Breeders’ Cup will be run here Oct. 30-31, and hopefully, the famously fickle Kentucky weather will have turned nice by then. After an incredibly busy summer here, signs of the Breeders’ Cup are everywhere at Keeneland, from towering chalets and additional grandstand seating to BC ballcaps and outerwear.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Stormy Lucy, third in the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 26, is a candidate for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
Ron Glatt, who assists trainer Ed Moger Jr., said on Thursday that the BC Filly and Mare Turf might be Stormy Lucy’s final start. She is scheduled to be sold at auction in Kentucky in the days after the Breeders’ Cup.
“If everything goes well, that will be the plan,” Glatt said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The multiple stakes winner Gabriel Charles has returned to trainer Jeff Mullins’s stable at Santa Anita after undergoing surgery for colic in August.
Gabriel Charles, who won the Grade 1 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar in July, has been with Mullins for three weeks and is being walked daily.
Gabriel Charles was rushed to a San Diego-area veterinary clinic Aug. 8 to undergo emergency surgery for colic. He was kept at the clinic until early September, when he was sent to Mullins.
ARCADIA, Calif. – California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, could return to racing in early January at Santa Anita, possibly in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Handicap at 1 1/16 miles, trainer Art Sherman said. Santa Anita has not released its 2015-16 winter-spring stakes schedule, but the San Pasqual typically is run on the second Saturday in January.
Sherman said on Thursday that California Chrome is tentatively scheduled to return to his stable at Los Alamitos on Oct. 13 and will immediately go into training.
“It will take about 90 days to get him ready,” Sherman said.
The dream season Brereton Jones is having with the 3-year-old fillies Lovely Maria and Include Betty carried into last weekend at Remington Park.
Include Betty invaded Oklahoma and won her fourth stakes of the year last Sunday in the $200,000 Remington Park Oaks. She used the same serious closing kick that helped her snatch the Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs in January, the Grade 3 Fantasy at Oaklawn in April, and the Grade 1 Mother Goose at Belmont in June.
“She’s quite a tenacious little package,” said Jones, who races Include Betty with Timothy Thornton.
Swift Thoroughbreds Inc. will be making a trip to Keeneland. Horatio and Jackie Kemeny and Mark and Naudia Maché, who make up the stable, recently purchased Last Waltz. The 2-year-old Irish-bred filly is coming off a third-place finish in the Group 3 C.L. and M.F. Weld Park Stakes at The Curragh.
They are hoping to run her in the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.
