DEL MAR, Calif. – Soul Driver enabled trainer Jeff Mullins to win the $116,000 Oceanside Stakes for the first time on Thursday’s opening day of the Del Mar summer meeting.
There is a bigger prize awaiting Soul Driver later this summer, the $250,000 Del Mar Derby on Sept. 6, a race in which Mullins has an accomplished recent history. He won a division of the Del Mar Derby in 2013 with Gabriel Charles and was second with Battle of Hastings in 2009.
DEL MAR, Calif. – It was the sort of phone call a trainer hates to make and an owner dreads to receive.
Last October, Mike Stidham called his client, Ike Thrash, in Hattiesburg, Miss., to convey the news that the stakes winner Her Emmynency had been sent to a Southern California equine clinic because of a bout with colitis.
“We have to keep our fingers crossed,” Stidham told Thrash. “It can go south in a couple of days.”
One bettor hit the 20-cent Rainbow 6 jackpot at Gulfstream Park on Thursday, earning a payoff of $164,483.
The wager, comprising races 4-9, had gone unsolved for seven consecutive racing programs. The Rainbow 6 carryover jackpot is paid out only when there is a single ticket sold with all six winners.
ELMONT, N.Y. – The fields are starting to come together for the first weekend of the Saratoga meet, which begins next Friday.
Friday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Lake George for 3-year-old fillies on turf is expected to attract Celestine, winner of her last four starts; Feathered, second in the Grade 1 American Oaks at Santa Anita; Mississippi Delta, winner of three in a row; Mrs. McDougal and Partisan Politics from the barn of trainer Chad Brown; Quality Rocks, winner of the Grade 3 Florida Oaks; and Robillard, 2 for 2 on turf and trained by Kiaran McLaughlin.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Twilight Eclipse, who finished a troubled third behind Big Blue Kitten in the July 5 United Nations Stakes at Monmouth Park, will bypass the Aug. 1 Bowling Green at Saratoga and point for the Aug. 29 Sword Dancer there, trainer Tom Albertrani said Thursday.
Albertrani initially considered running Twilight Eclipse in the Bowling Green but thought the additional time between races might be better for the horse.
Big Blue Kitten is undefeated on the turf at Saratoga, and his connections hope that statistic remains intact by summer’s end, with the 7-year-old horse likely to make two starts at the upcoming meet.
Big Blue Kitten, the winner of the Grade 1 United Nations at Monmouth Park on July 5, will be pointed to both the Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green on Aug. 1 and the Grade 1, $1 million Sword Dancer on Aug. 29. This is the first time the Bowling Green, run at 1 3/8 miles, will be run at Saratoga.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Tora Yamaguchi toiled in the racing office for 15 years, from the time he graduated from the Racetrack Industry Program at the University of Arizona, but he is now operating on the other side of the entry clerk’s desk after recently taking over as the jockey agent for Rafael Bejarano, whose previous agent, Joe Ferrer, retired and returned to Florida.
Maybe, just maybe, there will be turf racing Friday at rain-soaked Indiana Grand, and that would be welcome news with two turf stakes as part of a good 11-race card.
The featured ninth is the $100,000 Ta Wee around two turns at one mile for 3-year-old fillies. Race 7 is the $75,000 Brandywine, a turf sprint for older fillies and mares.
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OPELOUSAS, La. – The weather has turned hot in southern Louisiana, and so has apprentice Ashley Broussard. The spunky 22-year-old visited the winner’s circle all four days last week, including a riding double Saturday.
Despite getting a late start to the meeting, Broussard sat in 12th place in the local standings with 13 wins heading into Wednesday’s card.
“Things are going well,” Broussard said this week. “Some doors are starting to open, and we are beginning to win some races. I’ve been fortunate to ride for a lot of different outfits.”
Southern California racetracks and horsemen’s organizations have yet to reach an agreement on 2016 racing dates, an issue scheduled to be discussed at Friday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting in Del Mar.
The racing calendar for 2016 could be finalized Friday. The options include a calendar largely unchanged from 2014 and 2015 or one that gives Los Alamitos three-week meetings in the spring and early summer and a two-week meeting in December. Under that plan, Los Alamitos would not race in September, with racing shifting to Santa Anita during that time.
