Carve is thriving coming into Monday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap, trainer Brad Cox said. The horse invading from Churchill Downs will enter the meet’s most prestigious event off a runner-up finish to Race Day in last month’s Grade 2, $600,000 Oaklawn Handicap.
“He’s on top of his game, for sure,” said Cox, who trains Carve for Mike Langford of Arkansas. “He’s as good as he’s ever been, so I’m excited about running him.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – From September to March, Harlington’s Rose ran eight times and won the first two stakes of her career, including the Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes on March 8.
The active campaign led to a brief vacation that ends in Saturday’s $150,000 Spring Fever Stakes for California-bred fillies and mares at Santa Anita. With the drop in class from a graded stakes to statebred competition, trainer Steve Knapp expects a win.
“I would expect her to run a big race,” Knapp said. “She loves what’s going on. I worked her in company, and she’s sharp right now.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Firing Line, second in the Kentucky Derby on May 2 and seventh when eased in the Preakness Stakes last Saturday, will not race again until at least July, trainer Simon Callaghan said.
Callaghan is considering running Firing Line in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 2 or the $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 29, with a potential prep race in the $350,000 Los Alamitos Derby on July 4.
“We’ll keep him in light training for a couple of weeks,” Callaghan said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Diversy Harbor was euthanized on Tuesday after suffering complications from a sesamoid injury sustained in the Santa Barbara Handicap at Santa Anita on April 18, according to Craig Bernick, president of owner Glen Hill Farm.
Diversy Harbor underwent surgery at the Alamo Pintado Equine Clinic in Los Olivos, Calif., in the days after the Santa Barbara to stabilize the injury with a plate and screws. While she showed progress in the weeks after the operation, Bernick said Diversy Harbor’s condition had deteriorated in recent days.
OPELOUSAS, La. – If the Evangeline Downs Turf Sprint card on May 30 were a high-stakes poker game, it might be said that trainer Pat Devereux is holding the top pair. It is a hand Devereux said he could raise with.
“We’re all in,” Devereux said Monday as he prepares to send out Stormdriver in the $100,000 Evangeline Mile on the Turf Sprint undercard and Reflector in the $300,000 Turf Sprint itself. Both are already impressive stakes winners at the young meeting.
Bob Baffert won the trainers’ participation bonus at Pimlico last weekend, according to stakes coordinator Coley Blind.
To be eligible for the bonus, a trainer had to start at least five horses in designated races last Friday and Saturday. The order of finish was determined by a points system for finishing first (10 points), second (7), third (5), fourth (3), and for starting a horse (1 point).
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Palm Meadows training center will be kept open throughout the summer for the first time since the facility opened in 2002. One horseman who’s already availed himself of the opportunity to stable at the Boynton Beach location this summer is Carlo Vaccarezza, who sent out a pair of winners from Palm Meadows over the weekend at Gulfstream Park, including Little Michelle in Saturday’s Gracie Handicap.
Graham Motion is inching closer to both his 51st birthday and career win No. 2,000. The birthday, which is Friday, likely will spark the first celebration, but the second shouldn’t be far behind.
As of Wednesday morning, Motion had 1,996 North American victories. By any measure, that’s a lot of wins, but Motion has a large and powerful stable based in Fair Hill, Md., and there should be many more winners in the months and years ahead.
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.
