ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Phil D’Amato said Big John B, last of eight as the 9-5 favorite in the Grade 3 Last Tycoon Stakes last Saturday at Santa Anita, struggled on a turf course that took light rain that afternoon. He said plans were uncertain for the 6-year-old, who won the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap last August.
Big John B was well beaten by Si Sage. When it was obvious that Big John B would have no say in the outcome, jockey Mike Smith did not urge Big John B in the final furlong.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The first race for juveniles in Southern California in 2015 is Thursday’s third race at Santa Anita, a maiden special weight race for California-bred fillies at 4 1/2 furlongs.
Pulpit Rules, by Lucky Pulpit, the sire of 2014 Horse of the Year California Chrome, drew the outside post in a field of eight. Trained by Steve Knapp, Pulpit Rules has had three recorded workouts this spring, including a half-mile in 48 seconds last Saturday. The filly races for breeders Albert and Kathleen Mattivi.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The five undercard stakes were drawn Tuesday for Friday’s stakes-laden Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs.
Callback, the Grade 1 Las Virgenes winner, had been considered a Kentucky Oaks prospect earlier this year but was entered in the Grade 3, $200,000 Eight Belles at seven furlongs. After being disqualified from first and placed fourth for interference in the Sunland Park Oaks, she lacked the necessary Kentucky Oaks qualifying points to make the field.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Undefeated stakes winner Sunday Rules has raced sparingly in her career but has been a brilliant winner of each start.
Sunday Rules has won three sprint races by a combined 21 3/4 lengths over the last 20 months, including the Generous Portion Stakes for California-bred 2-year-old fillies at Del Mar in August 2013.
Trainer Phil D’Amato expects that winning streak to continue when Sunday Rules makes her 2015 debut in an optional claimer for fillies and mares going 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on Thursday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Even after all these years, the sight of trainer Larry Jones galloping a horse arrests the eye.
His long legs extended well below his mount’s barrel thanks to stirrups let down lower than any other exercise rider on the track, Jones, nearly twice the heft of a jockey, cuts a striking figure.
Marcia Stortz is still enjoying the afterglow of her first training victory with Blazing Mojave on April 19. Blazing Mojave was only the second runner she had started. He held off All Magic by a head in a six-furlong, $12,500 maiden claimer.
The 37-year-old former jockey won her first race as a rider with her seventh mount, Gifted Athlete, with a rail-hugging ride in 2003.
Tom Doutrich, the racing secretary for the California Authority of Racing Fairs, has released the first condition book for the 12-day Oak Tree at Pleasanton meet that will be held June 18 through July 5. The meet will include six Thoroughbred stakes and more than $1.7 million in purses and bonuses for trainers.
Mark Reid cut back his stable drastically in the mid-1990s, and in 2000 stopped training completely, switching his focus to the bloodstock side of the industry. At the time, he was the all-time leading trainer at Philadelphia Park and Garden State Park.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The field for one of the most wide-open renewals of the Kentucky Oaks in recent memory has been set, with California invader Stellar Wind being pegged as a slight program favorite in an oversubscribed lineup.
Churchill Downs linemaker Mike Battaglia has a core of five favorites bunched closely together on the morning line, with Stellar Wind the 7-2 choice over Condo Commando (4-1), I’m a Chatterbox (4-1), Lovely Maria (5-1), and Birdatthewire (6-1) in the 1 1/8-mile filly classic Friday.
