With New York facing another day of cold, Saturday’s live racing program at Aqueduct was canceled, the fourth straight day that all or part of a card was scrapped.
Saturday’s card included the $100,000 Busanda Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a race that has been rescheduled for Friday. It will be re-drawn on Sunday.
Aqueduct and Belmont Park were to remain open for simulcasting Saturday and it was hoped that racing would resume on Sunday when temperatures were expected to be in the 30s.
General a Rod, among the leading members of the 3-year-old division here last winter, will launch his comeback going seven furlongs under optional-claiming conditions in Wednesday’s featured eighth race. General a Rod won the Gulfstream Park Derby, finished second, beaten a head by Wildcat Red, in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, and was third in the Grade 1 Florida Derby last winter.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Though traditionally a series of races restricted to Florida-breds, the late decision to open the Sunshine Millions to horses bred in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland has given many horsemen new options they originally had not considered when shipping locally for the winter.
Of the 126 horses nominated to the five stakes races on next Saturday’s Sunshine Millions program, 26 are non-Florida-breds. That group includes the New York-bred Weekend Hideaway, who is being pointed for the $100,000 Sunshine Millions Sprint by trainer Phil Serpe.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Racing was canceled Friday at Aqueduct following the second race after two horses broke down and jockeys complained of blowing snow and some ice particles in the track.
It was the third cancellation of the week after Wednesday’s and Thursday’s cards were scrapped due to extreme cold.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Alonso Quinonez may try to win his second stakes in Saudi Arabia later this month, he said Thursday. Quinonez won a stakes at a track in Riyadh on Jan. 3.
Quinonez was winless in stakes in 2014 in the United States. He rode Alberts Hope to victory in the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar in August 2013.
◗ Matt Ascanio, whose father, Humberto, was a longtime assistant to the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, has become a jockeys’ agent. Ascanio recently began booking rides for Irving Orozco.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Wild Dude, the winner of the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes at Santa Anita last year, is nearing a return to racing and could start in the $200,000 Palos Verdes here Jan. 31.
On Friday at Santa Anita, Wild Dude worked six furlongs in 1:12.60. Trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, Wild Dude has worked steadily in recent weeks. The Palos Verdes is run over six furlongs.
“We have time to get him ready for that race,” Hollendorfer said.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Candy Boy, the winner of the Grade 2 Robert B. Lewis Stakes in 2014, and Cool Cowboy, a winner of three stakes, have been sold to race in Dubai, according to a statement released by Dubai racing officials.
The horses are in quarantine in Florida and are expected to arrive in Dubai in late January, said the horses’ Dubai-based trainer, Doug Watson, on Friday.
A solid field, headed by Grade 2 Golden Rod winner West Coast Belle and Top Decile, the runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and Alcibiades, is taking shape for the $125,000 Silverbulletday Stakes next Saturday at Fair Grounds. That race at a mile and 70 yards for 3-year-old fillies is the first stakes prep for the Fair Grounds Oaks.
NEW ORLEANS – Perhaps Eagle and Another Lemon Drop will nod at each other or shake hooves in the paddock before the Lecomte next Saturday at Fair Grounds. After all, they have known each other since they were babies being broken at Classic Mile Training Center in Ocala, Fla.
“They’re like grade-school buddies,” said Bill Recio, the trainer who broke Eagle and Another Lemon Drop. “The funny thing is, they were both in the same barn. They trained together.”
