LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bob Baffert will be on hand Saturday night at Churchill Downs to pick up his engraved trophy for winning the Kentucky Derby six weeks beforehand with American Pharoah.
While he’s at it, Baffert just might pick up another Grade 1 trophy when he sends out Hoppertunity and Cat Burglar in the $500,000 Stephen Foster Handicap, the annual post-Derby highlight of the Churchill spring meet.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Big Macher will not travel to Royal Ascot for the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee, trainer Richard Baltas said on Wednesday. The winner of the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar last July, Big Macher had been under consideration for the June 20 sprint.
Big Macher finished fourth in the $2 million Golden Shaheen for sprinters in Dubai on March 28. He has been training with Wesley Ward at Arlington Park and will return to Southern California in the coming days.
The decision not to send Big Macher was made on Tuesday, Baltas said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Talco, the winner of the Thunder Road Stakes in April, faces the most difficult test of his career in Saturday’s $400,000 Shoemaker Mile. He is part of a probable small field in the Grade 1 turf race, which is expected to be led by the star Brazilian import Bal a Bali and Midnight Storm, who won the Del Mar Derby last August.
Midnight Storm may hold the advantage in the race as the expected pacesetter. Talco is a closer who could be hampered by a slow pace, trainer John Sadler said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Firing Line, the runner-up in the Kentucky Derby on May 2, missed four days of training last week because of a sore foot, a setback that could delay his next start, trainer Simon Callaghan said on Wednesday.
Firing Line was scheduled to work over the weekend, but the exercise was postponed. Callaghan said Firing Line could work in the coming days, and a start in the $350,000 Los Alamitos Derby on July 4 is “50-50.”
Callaghan emphasized that Firing Line’s setback was brief.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – American Pharoah will be paraded before his adoring public before and after the sixth race Saturday night at Churchill Downs, giving fans a window of maybe 40 minutes to take another long look at the latest Triple Crown winner.
American Pharoah will be walked over from Barn 33 following the fifth of 11 Downs After Dark races, which is set for 7:57 p.m. Eastern, along with the runners in the sixth race.
Richard Klein, whose family bred and owns the stakes-winning turf sprinter Good Deed, announced Tuesday that the 6-year-old mare is being retired because of a knee problem.
Good Deed won 9 of 19 starts and earned $385,353. As a 4-year-old, she earned a 110 Beyer Speed Figure in winning a five-furlong allowance on the Churchill turf. She won five stakes before ending her career with back-to-back fourth-place finishes, including when she was favored against male rivals in the Grade 3 Twin Spires Turf Sprint on Kentucky Derby Day.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Phil Bauer could not have picked a much better setting to win his first race of the year. Bauer is the trainer of Channel Marker, a 6-year-old gelding who rallied for a 10-1 upset in the Grade 3 Jaipur on the Belmont Stakes undercard last Saturday.
“Things had started to weigh on me a little bit,” said Bauer.
OPELOUSAS, La. – Thiscatcanjam emerged in good order from her splashy stakes debut in last Saturday’s Acadiana Stakes, and her connections are eyeing Louisiana Legends Night on July 4 for her next start. The 3-year-old daughter of Big Top Cat ran her career record to three wins from four starts by making short work of eight other Louisiana-bred fillies in the seven-furlong Acadiana, kicking clear by 3 1/2 lengths.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The $400,000 Shoemaker Mile on turf at Santa Anita on Saturday is expected to have a field of five, all stakes winners.
Four locally based runners – Bal a Bali, Midnight Storm, Talco, and Winning Prize – will be challenged by the New York shipper Seek Again, trained by Bill Mott.
The Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the BC Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 31, provided the winner is nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Lea, the likely favorite for the Stephen Foster Handicap, arrived Sunday at Churchill Downs on the same air charter that transported Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and already has settled into a routine for Bill Mott assistant Kenny McCarthy.
“He jogged a mile and galloped a mile this morning, just like he did yesterday,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “He had his last breeze for the race before he left Saratoga.”
