The opening three days of the 11-day Churchill fall meet produced a handful of impressive performances by 2-year-olds making their career debuts, including Gun Runner and La Appassionata from the Steve Asmussen stable.
Gun Runner, a Candy Ride colt, won Friday going a mile for Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm, earning a 71 Beyer Speed Figure. La Appassionata, a Stonestreet Stables homebred filly by Bernardini, won Sunday at six furlongs, getting a 75 Beyer.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – For Kentucky horse trainers, there’s probably no busier time of year than this week. Not only are Churchill Downs and Kentucky Downs conducting race meets, but there are future prospects to be scouted and purchased at the Keeneland September yearling sale.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Linda Rice had big plans for Palace this year, including getting him to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint for a second consecutive year, but myriad issues have limited the multiple Grade 1 winner to just two starts in 2015, and it appears that time is running out to make the major fall sprint races.
Though Palace breezed five furlongs in 1:01.72 on Monday over Belmont Park’s training track, Rice didn’t seem to think he would be ready in time for the Grade 1 Vosburgh here Sept. 26.
East Hall will be coming off one of his strongest races of the year next month when he goes in the $75,000 Fort Loudon at Gulfstream Park. Trainer Bill Kaplan said Monday that the Oct. 3 race is the goal for the horse. East Hall earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 92 on Saturday after he closed in the slop for an authoritative win in the $75,000 Sensitive Prince at Gulfstream.
“We’ll try to stay here and win another one,” said Kaplan, who trains East Hall for Jack Hendricks and Roger Justice.
Terre Noire will attempt to win her seventh straight race Wednesday at Louisiana Downs. She is in the sixth race on a nine-race card that ushers in the final week of the meet. The first-level, $22,000 allowance is for fillies and mares over 7 1/2 furlongs on turf and drew a field of 13.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Victoria Park Stakes winner Billy’s Star will make his graded stakes debut Sunday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Derby, trainer Roger Attfield said.
Billy’s Star captured his first stakes victory Aug. 23, making a five-wide move into the stretch under jockey Eurico Da Silva to win the Victoria Park by 1 1/4 lengths. Attfield said all four of the horse’s Polytrack starts this season, including his maiden win in May, a sixth-place finish in the Plate Trial in June, and a fourth-place finish July 5 in the Queen’s Plate, have been strong.
BOSSIER CITY, La .- The road Mobile Bay will go down following his career-best win Saturday in the Grade 2, $400,000 Super Derby is to be determined, but he did emerge from the race in good order, trainer Victor Arceneaux said on Sunday.
The Super Derby was the highlight of a card of seven stakes at Louisiana Downs. Mobile Bay picked up his first graded win in the race, and for his 2 1/4-length victory earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 93.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Honor Code and Tonalist finished first and second in the Metropolitan Handicap and first and third in the Whitney Stakes. Before they are expected to meet again in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, both horses will go their separate ways for their next starts.
Honor Code will run in the Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap going a mile, while Tonalist will run in the Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes, a race he won last year. Both races are scheduled for Oct. 3 at Belmont Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Upstart and Madefromlucky, two of the top contenders for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing, worked Saturday in New York.
The 1 1/8-mile Pennsylvania Derby will be run next Saturday.
Upstart, the winner of the Grade 2 Holy Bull last winter, has finished fourth in the Travers and third in the Haskell Invitational in his two most recent races.
Madefromlucky won the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby last time out Aug. 1. He accounted for the Grade 2 Peter Pan in May at Belmont.
Following heavy afternoon rain on an already saturated turf course, Kentucky Downs announced Friday evening it would postpone Saturday’s 10-race Kentucky Cup card until Monday.
This marks the second time this week that rain has wreaked havoc on the all-turf European style course at Kentucky Downs, which has hills and valleys that can cause slippery or boggy conditions in low portions of the course following rainstorms. The track, located in Franklin, Ky., had been forced to cancel racing Thursday after two races when jockeys deemed the course unsafe after Wednesday storms.
