ARCADIA, Calif. – Betting at California tracks rose by 3.4 percent in January compared with the same month last year, executive director Rick Baedeker said at Wednesday’s California Horse Racing Board meeting.
Baedeker said that handle on daytime Thoroughbred programs at Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita rose by 1 percent in January. Business at nighttime meetings of Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds at Los Alamitos and harness racing at Cal-Expo rose 27.8 percent.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The 5-year-old gelding Weewinnin will make his seventh start Saturday in the $100,000 Sensational Star Stakes for California-breds at Santa Anita.
Twice in his career, Weewinnin has scored an upset in a California-bred stakes. He was the 60-1 winner of the King Glorious Stakes at Hollywood Park in December 2012 and a 21-1 winner of the California Cup Turf Classic at Santa Anita in January 2014.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sr. Quisqueyano did not look like a $62,500 claimer when trainer Peter Walder claimed him at Gulfstream Park in December.
“He had won more than $500,000, and you don’t get that by accident,” Walder recalled Wednesday. “He’s not your average $60,000 horse.”
Sr. Quisqueyano gave Loooch Racing Stable a fast dividend with a win in the $250,000 Sunshine Millions Classic at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 17. The next goal is to make the 5-year-old a millionaire with an upset win in the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap on March 7.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The ownership team of brothers Bob and Lee Ackerley of Houston started making some serious noise in racing decades ago, with horses like Jersey Girl, winner of the Acorn, Mother Goose, and Test in 1998. Their best also includes graded stakes winners Valid Expectations, Little Sister, and Snuck In.
Promise Me Silver, who remained undefeated in six starts with her win in last Saturday night’s Two Altazano division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park, has a handful of options for her next start, including the Honeybee Stakes at Oaklawn Park, trainer Bret Calhoun said Tuesday.
NEW ORLEANS – Ash Wednesday, the day after Mardi Gras, one can find a few folks wandering the French Quarter in New Orleans with a “What am I doing here?” glaze over their eyes.
A couple miles away at Fair Grounds, forgive the colt J S Bach if he has adopted a similar bearing.
Vyjack, the multiple graded stakes-winning gelding, has had two workouts at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland and could return to the races in March or April, trainer Rudy Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez mentioned the $100,000 Stymie on March 22 as a possible spot.
“He’s working very good at Fair Hill. We’re going to try and point him to the Stymie,” Rodriguez said. “He’s working very good. They showed me everything that he’s done over there.”
Though he hasn’t completely closed the door on shipping his top sprinter, Salutos Amigos, to Dubai for the $2 million Golden Shaheen, trainer David Jacobson said Wednesday that he is leaning toward staying home and pointing to one or two graded stakes at Aqueduct.
Jacobson said Dubai is “still in the discussion phase; it’s all about the horse – if we feel he’s up to the task or not. But we just feel so much more comfortable playing on our home field.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Under less-than-ideal circumstances, Kid Cruz will make his return to the races in Sunday’s $100,000 Evening Attire Stakes at Aqueduct, trainer Linda Rice said Wednesday.
Kid Cruz, who won four stakes as a 3-year-old in 2014, has not raced since finishing fourth in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 23. He emerged from that race with a chip in a knee and underwent surgery.
