Jockey Taylor Hole is one win away from his 2,000th career victory.
Hole, a 43-year-old native of Salem, N.H., has scored almost 1,600 of his wins at Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park. With the closing of Suffolk, he started riding in Maryland last November, and his business has steadily improved. He went 14 for 80 at the Laurel winter-spring meet and is 8 for 78 at Pimlico.
Joe Bravo had a busy Preakness week.
On Monday, he rode at Parx Racing; on Friday, he was at Belmont Park; and on Saturday, he finished second on 25-1 shot Cage Fighter in the Grade 2 Dixie and third on Happy My Way in the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint at Pimlico.
Back home at Monmouth Park on Sunday, he notched career win No. 4,999. His milestone 5,000th victory could come as early as Wednesday, when he is scheduled to ride for trainer Jason Servis in the ninth race at Belmont.
ARCADIA, Calif. – In a six-week span from mid-March to late April, the Little Red Feather racing partnership won eight races at Santa Anita with six horses.
Those runners earned a collective $388,280. In the next month, they could collect even more.
The six winners – Bobby Z Man, Chati’s On Top, Chaulk o Lattey, Midnight Storm, Rocko’s Wheel, and Sheer Pleasure – are all scheduled to race between Thursday and June 13. Four of them are bound for stakes, including three in six-figure races for California-breds at Santa Anita on Saturday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Two-time Horse of the Year Wise Dan has done well over the past few weeks in his recovery from a fracture to his right ankle, trainer Charlie LoPresti said Sunday at Churchill Downs. Wise Dan is under light training to harden the bone in the area surrounding the injury, which was incurred last fall.
Wise Dan, based at Keeneland, “probably spends three hours each day out of his stall,” LoPresti said.
LoPresti said Wise Dan alternates between jogging and tack walking each day and stands on a vibration plate to stimulate blood flow.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Saturday’s Grade 3 Louisville Handicap at 1 1/2 miles on turf is shaping up light, with Majestic Harbor, predominantly a dirt runner, the possible starting highweight at 116 pounds. Others being considered for the race are Calvados (115), Golden Soul (115), Cozy Kitten (114), For Greater Glory (114), Xtra Luck (114), and Russellin (113).
The light weight assignments will assure a number of overweights. Very few of the leading riders at Churchill Downs can tack less than 116 pounds.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Unlike Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah, who is bidding to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years in the Belmont Stakes on June 6, the Kentucky Oaks winner won’t be running in New York anytime soon. Oaks winner Lovely Maria and stablemate I’m a Chatterbox, who ran third in the Oaks, likely won’t make an appearance in New York until Saratoga, trainer Larry Jones said.
After what Jones thought was a hard spring for the two fillies, they are in light training at Delaware Park. Neither has had an extended break from racing.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer might not be holding all the aces for Monday’s $100,000, Grade 3 All American at one mile on the Golden Gate Fields main track, but he has three of them.
Hollendorfer plans to run G. G. Ryder, coming off a victory in the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on turf; Summer Hit, the winner of the past two All Americans as well as the Grade 3 Berkeley two years ago before it switched places with the All American; and Outside Nashville, 2 for 2 in stakes at Golden Gate.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Commissioner, 2 1/2-length winner of the Grade 3, $300,000 Pimlico Special last Friday, could make his next start in the Grade 2, $500,000 Suburban on July 4, Elliott Walden, president and CEO of WinStar Farm, said Monday.
Commissioner, a son of A.P. Indy owned by WinStar, has now won four races, two at 1 1/8 miles and two at 1 3/16 miles. The Suburban is run at 1 1/4 miles.
Irad Ortiz Jr., the leading rider at the Belmont spring meet, started a seven-day suspension Monday for careless riding during the running of the fifth race here May 13. The suspension was reduced from 10 days for waiving his right of appeal.
In that race, Ortiz was aboard R Y Squadron, the 6-5 favorite, who was on the lead from the outset in an optional-claiming event on turf. In deep stretch, R Y Squadron shifted in, which forced jockey Junior Alvarado to check sharply on Amazing Anne, who finished second.
