ARCADIA, Calif. – Lucky J Lane can keep a weekend streak of stakes wins alive for trainer Richard Baltas when the 4-year-old makes his stakes debut in next Saturday’s $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes at Santa Anita.
Over the last two weekends, Baltas has had a stakes winner, scoring in the $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap with Majestic City in Texas on May 25 and in Saturday’s $400,250, Grade 1 American Oaks with Spanish Queen.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Owners Lee and Susan Searing and trainer John Sadler have parted company after a 17-year relationship, Lee Searing and John Sadler said Sunday.
Lee Searing said all of his runners have been transferred to Peter Eurton.
With Sadler, the Searings won such races as the Grade 1 Santa Monica Stakes with Switch in 2011, the Grade 2 Robert Lewis Stakes with Candy Boy in 2014, the 2006 Melair Stakes with She’s An Eleven, and the 2006 El Cajon Stakes with Cindago.
ARCADIA. Calif. - Si Sage, the winner of the Grade 3 Last Tycoon Stakes at Santa Anita on April 26, has been sidelined by a recent bout with colic that required hospitalization, trainer Darrell Vienna said on Sunday.
Vienna said Si Sage did not need an operation and that the 5-year-old is back at his barn at Santa Anita. Vienna said there are no specific race plans.
“I’ll watch out how he’s doing and I may turn him out for a little while,” Vienna said.
Catch a Flight, the winner of Saturday’s $200,750 Californian Stakes for older horses, is a changed horse since his American career began last winter.
The Grade 2 Californian was Catch a Flight’s third win in his last four starts, and second consecutive stakes win. The victory makes him the early favorite for the $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 27.
Trained by Richard Mandella, Catch a Flight was third in a Group 1 on turf in Brazil in April 2014, but has improved significantly since arriving in California.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For a man on the verge of making racing history, now less than one week away from attempting to complete the Triple Crown on Saturday with American Pharoah in the Belmont Stakes, trainer Bob Baffert couldn’t have been more relaxed or in better spirits than he was Sunday morning at Churchill Downs.
ELMONT, N.Y. - They combined to win six Grade 1 stakes in 2014 and were both finalists for the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly. Yet, somehow, Untapable and Stopchargingmaria never met on the track.
That will change next Saturday when Untapable and Stopchargingmaria will clash for the first time in the Grade 1, $1 million Ogden Phipps Stakes on the undercard of the Belmont Stakes program.
Belmont Park
Weather: Clear
Track: Fast
Temp: 65
ELMONT, N.Y. – Barring a late change in plans, it appears that all the major work is over for the seven Belmont Stakes hopefuls currently stabled on the grounds after MUBTAAHIJ and TALE OF VERVE turned in five-furlong breezes about 2 1/2 hours apart under perfect conditions here Saturday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – When Tale of Verve failed to draw into the field for the Kentucky Derby, his connections immediately began thinking about the Belmont Stakes as an ideal race for their long-distance-running 3-year-old.
Feeling they needed a race in between, trainer Dallas Stewart and owner Charles Fipke chose the Preakness, where Tale of Verve rallied from well off the pace to finish second, seven lengths behind American Pharoah.
Although Pedro Terrero won the sixth race at Golden Gate Fields aboard 6-5 favorite Smart Ellis on Friday, apprentice jockey David Lopez also was a winner in the race.
Lopez, his brother, Erick, and father, Charles (C.C.), competed against each other for the first time in the $3,200, one-mile claiming race. David, fourth in the local jockeys’ standings, won family bragging rights by bringing in The Alameda Kid second. His older brother, riding High Greeley, nipped his father aboard Time To Glow at the finish line for third.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On a bright, warm Saturday morning at Churchill Downs, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner American Pharoah was sent through what figures to be his final gallop here, as the colt was tentatively scheduled to have his final breeze here Monday in preparation for the Belmont Stakes on June 6.
Trainer Bob Baffert was scheduled to return from his Southern California base Saturday night to be on hand Sunday and Monday amid mild weather.
