HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The way racetracks now operate, an event as big as the $1 million Florida Derby on March 28 requires it to be the centerpiece of a multiple-stakes day.
True to form, seven other stakes – all but one of them graded – will be on the undercard of the Grade 1 Florida Derby on a blockbuster 14-race program next Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
And on the first day of spring, racing was canceled at Aqueduct.
With a forecast calling for 3 to 5 inches of snow scheduled to start falling around noon, New York Racing Association officials announced that Friday’s eight-race card at Aqueduct would be canceled. It is the 16th full card cancellation of the inner-track meet. Another card was scrapped after two races were run.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bench Warrant and Daddy D T both have won a stakes race on turf in Southern California in the last seven months. Both are trained by John Sadler, and both have something to prove in Saturday’s $75,000 Pasadena Stakes.
Nine were entered in the Pasadena Stakes, which is for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf.
Bench Warrant is unbeaten in two races on the hillside turf course here, the most recent of which was the Baffle Stakes on Feb. 15. He closed from last in a field of eight to win by a neck as the 9-5 favorite.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Corey Nakatani is expected to miss at least a month after injuring his collarbone in a spill last Sunday, he said on Thursday.
Nakatani said his left collarbone “was broken at the tip” but that the injury will not require surgery. He said additional X-rays will be taken in about three weeks, and an assessment will be made on when he can return to riding.
He plans to undergo laser therapy and use an ultrasound machine to facilitate healing.
“I need to get the process going,” he said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 and champion 3-year-old filly of 2013, is nearing a return to racing for the first time in more than six months. She worked six furlongs in 1:10.80 at Santa Anita on Thursday, the second-fastest of 21 works at the distance.
Trained by Richard Mandella for B. Wayne Hughes, Beholder has not raced since winning the eighth stakes of her career in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita last September. She missed the Breeders’ Cup Distaff here last October because of illness.
The Big Beast breezed five furlongs in a bullet 1:00.20 on Tuesday at Oaklawn in his first work since winning a local allowance March 1. He remains a candidate for either the Carter at Aqueduct or the Count Fleet at Oaklawn, according to trainer Tony Dutrow.
“He’s doing super,” Dutrow said Wednesday. “He’s still on schedule for either the Carter or the Count Fleet. A decision really doesn’t have to be made on that right now. We’re just watching our horse, and he seems to be very, very good.”
Work All Week, the champion sprinter of 2014, arrived at Oaklawn Park on Tuesday morning, according to his trainer, Roger Brueggemann. The horse tracked Wednesday. He was accompanied on his trip from Ocala, Fla., by Grade 3 winner The Pizza Man.
Work All Week had been in training in Ocala. He was freshened after his win in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita.
“He looks good,” said Brueggemann, who has a division at Oaklawn.
Work All Week races for his breeder, Midwest Thoroughbreds.
Firing Line landed the rail and was installed as the 8-5 favorite when a field of eight was entered Wednesday for Sunday's Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby at Sunland Park.
Gary Stevens rides Firing Line, who was a close second to Dortmund in the Robert Lewis and Los Alamitos Futurity in his last two starts. He is trained by Simon Callaghan.
From the rail out, the field for the 1 1/8-mile race is Firing Line, Lord Nelson, Where’s the Moon, Why Two, Malibu Mogul, Tiznow R J, Pain and Misery, and Dirt Monster. Lord Nelson is the second choice at 3-1.
Trainer Steve Asmussen is hoping a change in surface will help bring out the best in Tiznow R J. He believes the horse, coming off a rare off-the-board finish, is a talented individual, and Tiznow R J will get a shot to prove it Sunday in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby.
Tiznow R J was one of eight runners entered Wednesday in the 1 1/8-mile race, which along with the $200,000 Sunland Oaks will anchor the richest program of the meet at Sunland Park in New Mexico.
Arlington International released a pared-down 2015 stakes schedule Tuesday, but the International Festival of Racing, headlined by the Arlington Million, is still intact.
Arlington hosted 25 stakes worth about $5.5 million in 2014, but the schedule this year includes only 18 stakes worth about $3.5 million, of which five races worth $2,750,000 will be run on the same day, Aug. 15, Arlington Million Day. Three Grade 1 stakes will be run that day: The Million, the $750,000 Beverly D., and the $500,000 Secretariat.
