HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The Gulfstream Park Turf course, which underwent a complete renovation that began two months after the conclusion of the 2022-23 Championship meeting, passed its first serious test with flying colors after jockeys Edgard Zayas and Luca Panici worked the Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained duo of General Ledger and Sunshine Frolic over the freshly sodded strip at the end of training hours on Monday.
Skip to main content
Create Your DRF Account
New to DRF?
Everything you could possibly
need in one place
need in one place
Register
Don't have an account?
Register Here
DRF Past Performances
With her two wins on Sunday’s card, Linda Rice has won 152 races on the New York Racing Association circuit in 2023. The single-year record for wins at NYRA is 164 set by David Jacobson in 2013.
There are 16 scheduled racing days remaining in 2023 at Aqueduct.
Aside from Jacobson, the only trainers to have won more races than Rice in a calendar year at NYRA are Gary Contessa (159 in 2007), Chad Brown (159 in 2022), Frank Martin (156 in 1974), and Brown (154 in 2018).
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – When Raging Sea won Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Comely Stakes at Aqueduct, it was the 22nd graded stakes win of 2023 on the New York Racing Association circuit for trainer Chad Brown.
Brown is looking to add to that total when he likely sends out multiple runners here on Saturday in the final four graded events of the year on the NYRA calendar.
Straight Arrow arrived back at Tampa Bay Downs over the weekend following his seventh-place finish in Friday’s Grade 2 Clark Stakes at Churchill Downs and will be pointed to a turf race for his next start, most likely at Gulfstream Park, trainer Mike Dini said.
Dini said Straight Arrow had a case of the thumps, an electrolyte imbalance, coming out of the race.
“I don’t know if the track was too loose that he couldn’t get a hold of it,” Dini said. “He had thumps real bad where they don’t get their breath.”
Churchill Downs on Friday canceled turf racing for the remainder of its race meeting, which concludes Sunday, the latest setback for a $10 million course installed before the start of the track’s 2022 racing season.
On Thursday, the Cardinal Stakes was contested on turf, the first grass race at Churchill since Nov. 11, when the track began moving turf races to dirt after some riders said that the course wasn’t safe, describing it, variously, as soft, loose, and slippery. A horse named English Treasure fell during a turf race Nov. 9.
Boosted by a carryover of $94,601 from Sunday, bettors added a robust $910,910 to the $1 pick six at Del Mar on Thursday.
The bet returned $10,763 to tickets with six winners, and $111 to ticketholders with five winners.
The bet covered the third through eighth races. The winners of the pick six races were Nokie ($6), Standing O ($20.20), Stay in Line ($24.80), Linda’s Gift ($7.80), Cliquish ($4.40), and Asada Fries ($5).
Cliquish and Asada Fries were favored, while Nokie and Linda’s Gift were the second choices.
Kazushi Kimura, the leading rider at the current Woodbine meeting near Toronto, will spend a second consecutive winter at Santa Anita, according to his new agent, Brian Beach.
Kimura will begin riding in California on Dec. 26, the opening day of the Santa Anita meeting. Woodbine’s meeting ends on Dec. 17.
Through Thursday, Kimura was the clear leader at Woodbine with 144 wins, 26 more than second-place Sahin Civaci. Kimura won riding titles at Woodbine in 2021 and 2022.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Shimmering Allure, three-length winner of the Tempted Stakes on Nov. 5 at Aqueduct, is confirmed to run in the Grade 2, $250,000 Demoiselle Stakes here Dec. 2, trainer Kenny McPeek said this week.
Shimmering Allure, a daughter of Enticed, has already run six times this year, with a maiden victory at Churchill Downs on Sept. 20 and the Tempted – both one-turn mile races – to her credit. The Demoiselle is run at 1 1/8 miles.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Byron Hughes, who has worked as Todd Pletcher’s Belmont Park assistant for the last 10 years, will leave Pletcher’s employ at the end of the month. He plans to continue his studies and hopes to become an equine veterinarian.
“Over the years I gained an interest in veterinarian studies and after many discussions and seeking advice, I thought this was something I’d like to do and I have a lot of support for it too,” said Hughes, 37.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Soldier Rising, still in search of his first stakes victory, will travel to Hong Kong to try and achieve it.
Soldier Rising is being pointed to the Group 1, $3.06 million Hong Kong Vase on Dec. 10 at Sha Tin, according to trainer Christophe Clement. Soldier Rising was expected to work at Belmont Park over the weekend and ship to Hong Kong on Dec. 1.