OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The narrow margin of victory hardly does justice to Tencendur’s maiden win against New York-breds at Aqueduct on Monday. The 3-year-old Tencendur overcame significant adversity to record his three-quarter-length victory and may be on to bigger and better things in a few weeks.
With limited options for 3-year-old maiden winners, Tencendur could make his next start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes here Feb. 7, trainer George Weaver said.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Lucky Player, the winner of the Grade 3 Iroquois at Churchill Downs in September, likely will make his next start on grass, said trainer Steve Asmussen. Lucky Player finished eighth in the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park on Monday.
“I don’t think he handled the racetrack at all, watching the replay,” Asmussen said. “He just jumped up and down in the sand, swapped leads in the dirt, wasn’t holding his head the way he does when you watch him train on a good day. We know he’s better than that. He trains like too nice of a horse.”
Angelica Zapata will be looking for the 11th stakes win of her career Saturday night in the $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic at Sam Houston Race Park.
She has invaded from south Florida to be part of an eight-horse field that includes defending champ Rose to Gold, probable favorite Cassatt, and multiple stakes winners Shanon Nicole and Kiss to Remember.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Shared Belief, the winner of the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes on Dec. 26, worked six furlongs in 1:13.20 at Golden Gate Fields on Wednesday, moving closer to a start in the $500,000 San Antonio Stakes on Feb. 7 at Santa Anita Park.
The San Antonio Stakes will be a showdown between Shared Belief, the champion 2-year-old male of 2013, and California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male. Bayern, the Breeders' Cup Classic winner, is a possible for the race.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Instant Replay could get a shot at next month’s Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park after winning a first-level allowance at the track in eye-catching fashion Monday. Instant Replay was returning to two turns and finished with a flourish in the 1 1/16-mile race run right before the featured $150,000 Smarty Jones.
“He had been working very well and ran to those works,” said Wayne Catalano, who trains Instant Replay for Gary and Mary West Stables. “We were happy with the performance and hope to move forward.”
Trainer Richie Scherer said last week he was aiming Bourbon Cowboy at the Black Gold Stakes, but Scherer, evidently, found a better spot sooner. Bourbon Cowboy, a sharp second to Cinco Charlie in the Sugar Bowl Stakes here last month, is one of eight horses entered in Friday’s featured eighth race, a first-level, turf sprint allowance for 3-year-olds that’s also open to $50,000 claimers.
Trainer Neil Howard said Eagle had come out of his seventh-place finish in the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds in apparently good physical condition, to the extent that Howard decided to send Eagle back to the track on Tuesday. Many horses get more than just two walk days in the barn after racing.
“He was getting pretty high on me already,” Howard said.
Howard said he and owner-breeder Will Farish plan to push on to the Risen Star unless Eagle gives Howard cause to think otherwise in coming weeks.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Tough Sunday might miss Saturday’s $250,000 California Cup Derby at Santa Anita because of a bruised foot diagnosed this week. Compared with what the colt went through in the first weeks of his life, the setback is almost meaningless.
Tough Sunday was born deaf and blind at owner and breeder Nick Alexander’s farm in Santa Ynez, Calif., in March 2012 after a complicated foaling in which his umbilical cord separated prematurely. The colt was deprived of oxygen for several minutes during foaling, Alexander said.
The purse of the Ruidoso Thoroughbred Championship has been raised from $60,000 to $100,000 and will be the showcase race for older Thoroughbreds at the New Mexico track this summer.
Ruidoso Downs general manager Shaun Hubbard said on Tuesday that the Ruidoso Thoroughbred Championship will be run on Sept. 7, Labor Day, as part of a program that includes the $3 million-estimated All American Futurity for Quarter Horses.
