Indiana Grand Racecourse commences its 2015 racing season Tuesday, with a new summer date for the Indiana Derby, an attractive and stable purse structure – and one nagging issue that won’t go away.
If the land on which Indiana Grand sits had a small mountain and the day were sufficiently clear, a person could spy several competing racing venues off in the distance. The region is flush with them.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita completed its 68-day winter-spring meeting on Sunday with increases in all-sources handle and attendance but a decline in ontrack handle, track officials said.
The track published limited business data for the meeting, which began Dec. 26.
All-sources handle, including offtrack and account-wagering revenue, rose 3 percent, while ontrack handle fell 1 percent, officials said. Attendance rose 4 percent from the corresponding meeting in 2013-14.
Jockey Dennis Carr underwent surgery Sunday night after sustaining a head injury when thrown from his mount in the starting gate prior to Sunday's fifth race at Golden Gate Fields.
Carr was ejected out of the back of the gate when his mount, Sharpton, reared wildly in the gate. Carr was able to walk following the fall but complained of a headache when he was taken by the track ambulance to the track's medical center, where track physician David Seftel sent him to Highland Hospital in Oakland for a CT Scan.
Former jockey Marcia Stortz earned her first victory as a trainer Sunday at Golden Gate Fields when Blazing Mojave held off the late charge of All Magic to with a six-furlong, $12,500 maiden claimer by a head.
Stortz’s jockey career was cut short in 2013 due to knee problems, but she still gallops horses.
Blazing Mojave was only her second starter and paid $10.40. Anne Sanguinetti was the winning rider. The 5-year-old gelding was dropping from a $25,000 maiden claimer to $12,500.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Papacoolpapacool extended his winning streak to three races in Saturday’s $79,750 La Puente Stakes, a victory that will lead to a start in the $500,000 Penn Mile for 3-year-olds on turf at Penn National on May 30.
“We’re progressing toward that race,” trainer Phil D’Amato said Sunday. “I don’t see any reason not to go there. His confidence is through the roof.”
Papacoolpapacool ran a career-best performance in the La Puente Stakes at 1 1/8 miles, closing from fourth in a field of eight to win by 4 1/4 lengths as the 1-2 favorite under jockey Gary Stevens.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Queen of the Sand, who won the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Handicap on Saturday, will run next in the Grade 1, $300,000 Gamely Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares May 25.
“It looks like that works because of the timing,” trainer Paddy Gallagher said.
STICKNEY, Ill. – That the Illinois Derby no longer is a true prep for any Triple Crown race, much less the Kentucky Derby, was emphasized this weekend by the fact that neither the winner of Saturday’s race, Whiskey Ticket, nor the horse he nosed out in victory, Conquest Curlinate, is nominated to the Triple Crown.
The first fallout from the injury to One Lucky Dane occurred Sunday, when Keith Brackpool, a co-owner of Bolo, announced via Twitter that Rafael Bejarano would ride Bolo in the Kentucky Derby on May 2, the first of several jockey assignments that are expected to be made in the next 48 hours.
Bejarano would have ridden One Lucky Dane in the Derby, but One Lucky Dane suffered a condylar fracture to his left front ankle during a workout Saturday at Santa Anita and is off the Derby trail.
Churchill Downs
Weather: Raining; temperature 65
Track: Fast early/Sloppy after break
LOUISVILLE, Ky . - In the past, no trainer would dare run a horse in the Kentucky Derby without at least one work over the Churchill Downs racing strip. But Funny Cide’s victory in 2003 changed all that. This year is a prime case in point, with not even half the field on the grounds yet and at least a half a dozen, and possibly more, members of the prospective starting lineup not expected to have a breeze over the track prior to Derby Day.
