ELMONT, N.Y. – Multiple Grade 1 stakes winner Honor Code will be the horse to beat in Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap, but California shipper Appealing Tale will be the horse to catch in the one-turn, one-mile race.
Appealing Tale, trained by Peter Miller, is coming off a front-running victory in the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien going seven furlongs at Del Mar on Aug. 22.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher has won virtually every Grade 1 race run in New York. To this point, however, the Jockey Club Gold Cup has eluded him.
Pletcher has run 13 horses in 10 editions of the Gold Cup. He finished second with Lawyer Ron (to Curlin) in 2007 and finished second again in 2011 with Stay Thirsty, who was beaten a head by Flat Out.
On Saturday, Pletcher will try again when he sends out the pair of Constitution and Coach Inge in the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup, a stepping-stone to the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The older horses Catch a Flight and Twentytwentyvision will be sidelined this fall after suffering recent injuries.
Catch a Flight underwent nuclear scan tests earlier this week that revealed a developing injury to a condylar bone that will require “a few months off,” trainer Richard Mandella said.
Twentytwentyvision is recovering from a bizarre incident Sunday in which he got his face stuck in the front of a gate and suffered a severe lip injury that required more than an hour of stitches to mend.
Another chapter will be tacked onto the remarkable story of Edward Boerjan when he saddles Kalamos for the second race Friday at Keeneland.
Kalamos, purchased here last November for a mere $3,000 at the horses-of-racing-age sale, was 50-1 when capturing the $150,000 Old Friends Stakes on Sept. 16 at Kentucky Downs, giving Boerjan easily the biggest coup of his intermittent career as an owner and trainer.
As dawn broke Wednesday morning, there was still no sign of D. Wayne Lukas at his longtime Barn 44 headquarters at Churchill Downs.
But it wasn’t going to be much longer, said Lukas’s assistant, Bas Nicholl. And in any event, “he’s already back in full command of the ship” while giving instructions by phone from his home in the east end of Louisville, added Nicholl.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The losses are starting to mount for Kobe’s Back in recent months, giving added urgency to his appearance in Saturday’s $300,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship.
The Grade 1 Santa Anita Sprint Championship will be the final start for Kobe’s Back before a potential trip to Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Oct. 31. The objectives are clear.
“I need to see a big race, a first or a second,” trainer Peter Eurton said. “Otherwise, who are we fooling?”
This year’s Breeders’ Cup is four weeks away, but trainer Keith Desormeaux still can’t stop thinking about last year’s Breeders’ Cup, where his Texas Red rallied from last to win the $2 million Juvenile by 6 1/2 lengths at Santa Anita.
Trainer Doug O’Neill is considering the Grade 1, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf for both Jakaby Jade and Gomo.
Jakaby Jade took advantage when the rail opened up to win the $101,000 Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf in her first start in North America. The horse who vacated the rail, which might have cost her a win in the one-mile race, was Gomo, who finished third.
“It was a good race for both of them,” said O’Neill.
He plans on running Jakaby Jade in the $100,000 Surfer Girl at Santa Anita on Oct. 10.
The big question for anyone pointing toward the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Oct. 31 is what the connections of division leader Private Zone ultimately decide to do over the next several weeks.
Trainer Jorge Navarro and stable manager Rene Douglas remained undecided Wednesday as to whether to run the four-time Grade 1 winner in the Sprint, as was their original intention, or stretch him out for the Dirt Mile. One thing is for certain, according to Navarro: Private Zone couldn’t be doing any better at present.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – If not for the Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup, the Saturday card on opening weekend would be easily the richest this month at Keeneland.
As it is, it’s still pretty good.
The Shadwell Turf Mile, the traditional fall-meet signature event, anchors a 10-race card that features five straight graded races. All but one, the First Lady, are Win and You’re In events toward the Breeders’ Cup. NBC has live coverage from 5-6 p.m. Eastern.
In reverse order, snapshots of the Saturday races:
