DEL MAR, Calif. – The Del Mar summer meeting came alive for trainer Peter Eurton on Sunday in the seconds Stay Hot needed to close from last to first in the La Jolla Handicap on turf.
Stay Hot was Eurton’s first winner with his 20th starter of the season, which began July 20.
“Considering the way the first two weeks have gone, that was a nice day, especially with him,” Eurton said Monday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Ottoman Fleet, who has won a pair of graded stakes at Churchill Downs this spring for Godolphin Racing, may join or substitute for Master of The Seas in the Grade 1 Fourstardave here on Aug. 10, trainer Charlie Appleby said Friday.
“He’s in such great form, he deserves to have a step up into Grade 1 company,” Appleby said Friday after watching eight of his charges put in workouts over the Oklahoma turf course.
A win in a sleepy maiden claimer for fillies and mares at the Cal-Expo fair in Sacramento, Calif. on July 27 provided a first career victory for 18-year-old jockey Micah Meeks.
With her sixth career mount, Meeks won the race at 1 1/16 miles aboard Tizthehartofdixie by a commanding 6 1/2 lengths.
“It was so cool,” Meeks reflected a few days later. “It was amazing. If you’re going to win that’s the way to do it.”
Jockey Geovanni Franco has been sidelined with a shoulder injury sustained in a spill at Del Mar on July 26 and will not ride again until early September, according to his agent, Jack Carava.
Franco has “a small fracture” in his shoulder and is awaiting an MRI on a knee, Carava said.
The knee “x-rayed clean,” Carava said. “He still has some residual swelling. They still want to check it out.”
Carava said Franco will be out for five weeks, a time period that includes the remainder of the Del Mar summer season, which ends on Sept. 8.
Smiling Tiger, a fixture among leading stallions in California since 2018, was euthanized on Thursday because of complications of ataxia.
Through Thursday, Smiling Tiger led all stallions in California in progeny earnings, with more than $2.38 million. Smiling Tiger’s death was first reported by Bloodhorse.com. Ataxia is a muscle control disorder.
Smiling Tiger, who was 17, was fourth among the state’s stallion in progeny earnings in 2022 and rose to third last year. He ranked ninth in 2018 and was sixth for three consecutive years from 2019 through 2021.
The Oak Tree Racing Association, which operated the fall season at Santa Anita for decades, has made a cash infusion of $157,000 to the purses of seven races at Del Mar on Saturday, and plans a similar investment at Santa Anita on Oct. 5.
The funding comes from Oak Tree’s endowment, which also provides annual donations to racing-related charities, officials said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Trainer Kenny McPeek turned 62 years old on Friday. In Thorpedo Anna, he has the gift that keeps on giving.
Friday morning, Thorpedo Anna picked up the paces in her training toward a start against the boys in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes here on Aug. 24, working a half-mile shortly after 5:30 a.m. With a heavy mist obscuring view of the poles on the Oklahoma training track, Thorpedo Anna will not be credited with an official time. Daily Racing Form caught her galloping out a quarter-mile past the wire in 26.53 seconds.
Express Train, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in 2022, is scheduled to start in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 31 for the third time in his career after a third-place finish in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar last Saturday.
Express Train closed from last of five in the San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles to finish 4 3/4 lengths behind Dr. Venkman, another candidate for the $1 million Pacific Classic.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Harold Ladouceur is a rare breed among trainers. The 57-year-old gallops many of his own horses, including the Stronach Stables runners Rafaroo and Vitality, who are both headed to the $1 million King’s Plate on Aug. 17.
Rafaroo and Vitality were in the same maiden race on the canceled July 14 card at Woodbine, after which they went their separate ways. The following Friday, Vitality graduated with authority in his first start as a gelding, a day before Rafaroo finished a bang-up second to heavily favored My Boy Prince in the Plate Trial Stakes.
