HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Nick Zito has secured fellow Hall of Famer Gary Stevens to ride Frammento in the April 4 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. Frammento breezed a bullet half-mile in 47.80 seconds Thursday at the Palm Meadows training center.
Stevens rode Halory Hunter to win the 1998 Blue Grass, giving Zito his second of three victories in the race.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Ekati’s Phaeton showed that she’s ready for next Saturday’s Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks by working five furlongs in 1:00.73 here Friday with jockey Juan Leyva aboard. The 1 1/16-mile Oaks will be Ekati’s Phaeton’s first race going two turns on the main track.
NEW ORLEANS – It’s a natural pairing – jockey Joe Talamo, who is from Marrero, a New Orleans suburb on the west bank of the Mississippi River, and trainer Tom Amoss, a New Orleans native.
The jockey and trainer, who teamed often when Talamo was the leading rider at Fair Grounds as an apprentice during the 2006-07 season, say they’re excited about reuniting for a run at the Louisiana Derby with War Story.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The way racetracks now operate, an event as big as the $1 million Florida Derby on March 28 requires it to be the centerpiece of a multiple-stakes day.
True to form, seven other stakes – all but one of them graded – will be on the undercard of the Grade 1 Florida Derby on a blockbuster 14-race program next Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
And on the first day of spring, racing was canceled at Aqueduct.
With a forecast calling for 3 to 5 inches of snow scheduled to start falling around noon, New York Racing Association officials announced that Friday’s eight-race card at Aqueduct would be canceled. It is the 16th full card cancellation of the inner-track meet. Another card was scrapped after two races were run.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bench Warrant and Daddy D T both have won a stakes race on turf in Southern California in the last seven months. Both are trained by John Sadler, and both have something to prove in Saturday’s $75,000 Pasadena Stakes.
Nine were entered in the Pasadena Stakes, which is for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf.
Bench Warrant is unbeaten in two races on the hillside turf course here, the most recent of which was the Baffle Stakes on Feb. 15. He closed from last in a field of eight to win by a neck as the 9-5 favorite.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Corey Nakatani is expected to miss at least a month after injuring his collarbone in a spill last Sunday, he said on Thursday.
Nakatani said his left collarbone “was broken at the tip” but that the injury will not require surgery. He said additional X-rays will be taken in about three weeks, and an assessment will be made on when he can return to riding.
He plans to undergo laser therapy and use an ultrasound machine to facilitate healing.
“I need to get the process going,” he said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 and champion 3-year-old filly of 2013, is nearing a return to racing for the first time in more than six months. She worked six furlongs in 1:10.80 at Santa Anita on Thursday, the second-fastest of 21 works at the distance.
Trained by Richard Mandella for B. Wayne Hughes, Beholder has not raced since winning the eighth stakes of her career in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita last September. She missed the Breeders’ Cup Distaff here last October because of illness.
The Big Beast breezed five furlongs in a bullet 1:00.20 on Tuesday at Oaklawn in his first work since winning a local allowance March 1. He remains a candidate for either the Carter at Aqueduct or the Count Fleet at Oaklawn, according to trainer Tony Dutrow.
“He’s doing super,” Dutrow said Wednesday. “He’s still on schedule for either the Carter or the Count Fleet. A decision really doesn’t have to be made on that right now. We’re just watching our horse, and he seems to be very, very good.”
Work All Week, the champion sprinter of 2014, arrived at Oaklawn Park on Tuesday morning, according to his trainer, Roger Brueggemann. The horse tracked Wednesday. He was accompanied on his trip from Ocala, Fla., by Grade 3 winner The Pizza Man.
Work All Week had been in training in Ocala. He was freshened after his win in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita.
“He looks good,” said Brueggemann, who has a division at Oaklawn.
Work All Week races for his breeder, Midwest Thoroughbreds.
