ARCADIA, Calif. - The primary goal of Talco’s 2015 season was determined with his upset win in Saturday’s $400,000 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita.
The race was part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth for the winner to the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 31. The Grade 1 Shoemaker was the most significant win of Talco’s career in his 15th start, and a turnaround from his behavior after he joined trainer John Sadler’s stable last summer from France.
ARCADIA, Calif.- Beholder will show improvement from her win in Saturday’s $100,250 Adoration Stakes at Santa Anita when she makes her third start of 2015 in the $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 1.
Sunday, trainer Richard Mandella expressed confidence Beholder was not in peak form when she won the Grade 3 Adoration Stakes for her 10th career stakes win.
“She was in good shape yesterday and will be better next time,” Mandella said.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Salutos Amigos, among the top sprinters on the East Coast if not in the country, will make his return to the races July 5 in the Grade 2, $250,000 Smile Sprint Handicap at Gulfstream Park, trainer David Jacobson confirmed Sunday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Wildcat Red is wasting little time getting himself fit and ready for his much-anticipated return. Working for just the second time since going to the sidelines following his fifth-place finish in the Sunshine Millions Classic five months earlier, Wildcat Red zipped a quick five furlongs in 59.40 seconds over a fast track with Eddie Castro aboard on Friday morning.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Ralph Nicks has reported that his graded-stakes-winning speedster Speechify has been sidelined due to a minor suspensory injury. The 5-year-old is used to overcoming adversity, surviving as he does on a liquid diet due to a restricted esophagus which prevents him from eating solid food.
“It’s nothing major, just a little setback,” said Nicks. “He’ll miss 60 days and then be back in training.”
Speechify’s most important victory came here early last winter in the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector.
Oaklawn president Charles Cella has taken great care to build up the program for 3-year-olds at his Hot Springs, Ark., track, and the series reached a pinnacle last weekend when graduate American Pharaoh completed the Triple Crown.
Japan, winner of the Easy Goer Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard, likely will make his next start Aug. 1 in the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, trainer Bill Mott said Friday.
Mott said he prefers the Jim Dandy to the Dwyer, a $500,000 one-turn-mile race July 4 at Belmont, due to the spacing on the calendar, and it gives him the opportunity to “go a little farther.” The Jim Dandy is run at 1 1/8 miles.
“He’s just a baby,” Mott said of Japan. “He should have gotten something out of it. It was a small field, but I thought he looked good doing it.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – At least one champion is planning to run in Saratoga Springs this summer.
Judy the Beauty, last year’s champion filly and mare sprinter, is expected to make her next start in the Grade 2, $200,000 Honorable Miss Handicap at Saratoga on July 29, trainer Wesley Ward said. The Honorable Miss is the local prep for the Grade 1, $500,000 Ballerina at Saratoga on Aug. 29.
ELMONT, N.Y. – After Willet won the Interborough Stakes on New Year’s Day, trainer and part-owner Jimmy Iselin said it more than likely would be the end of her career.
But Iselin could not let go, and five months later, the 7-year-old New York-bred mare is working toward a return, probably in the $100,000 Dancin Renee Stakes for statebreds on June 28. Willet, a five-time stakes winner who still is searching for her first graded win, has worked three times, including a seven-furlong move in 1:26.63 on June 9 at Aqueduct.
