Take Charge Brandi, the winner of the BC Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, will be a heavy favorite Dec. 13 in the $350,000 Starlet Stakes.
The Grade 1 Starlet is run over 1 1/16 miles and previously was run at Hollywood Park, which closed at the end of 2013.
The rumors of Turfway Park closing have persisted for years now. Business at the northern Kentucky track has slumped steadily, and management often has struggled to offer a respectable racing product.
But until something else happens, “we’re in here trying as hard as we can,” said Chip Bach, the Turfway general manager who worked long hours Thursday as the track opened for four months of winter racing.
It took a while to get Cosmic Gold’s career rolling, but the soon-to-be 4-year-old son of Mineshaft rattled off his third straight win at Laurel Park on Wednesday and appears headed to the stakes ranks.
Owned by Harry and Tom Meyerhoff and trained by Mike Trombetta, Cosmic Gold handily won his two-turn debut in the second-level optional claiming race and earned a 90 Beyer Speed Figure. He certainly could have gone faster down the lane if jockey Julian Pimentel had needed.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Texas Red is nearing the end of his post-Breeders’ Cup vacation.
The upset winner of the BC Juvenile at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, Texas Red has been in light training in recent weeks and will resume serious exercise Dec. 15, trainer Keith Desormeaux said.
“I kind of let him recover from a long campaign,” Desormeaux said Thursday afternoon at Los Alamitos. “He appreciated it, too. He’s put on weight, and he’s grown. Hopefully, we can go through a long Triple Crown campaign.”
NEW ORLEANS – After about a month of shed-rowing and jogging, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up Top Decile began galloping at Fair Grounds this week, and trainer Al Stall Jr. said he’s pleased with what he sees.
Stall said he has yet to map out a racing schedule for Top Decile, who is a few weeks away from a workout. Obvious local stakes possibilities for her are the Silverbulletday on Jan. 17, the Rachel Alexandra on Feb. 21, and the Fair Grounds Oaks on March 28. Stall has the option of starting her 2015 campaign in a first-level allowance race.
Beholder, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 and 3-year-old filly of 2013, is a notable absentee from Saturday’s $200,000 Bayakoa Stakes at Los Alamitos. It will not be long before she is back in trainer Richard Mandella’s Santa Anita stable.
Mandella said last weekend that Beholder is two weeks away from being sent to a layup facility operated by Julie Adair-Stack to begin early training for a comeback. She is likely to spend a few weeks there before being sent to Santa Anita.
Apprentice jockey Alexandra Jara remained hospitalized Thursday due to injuries suffered in a spill Wednesday at Aqueduct.
Jara broke her collarbone and had some bleeding on her spleen, according to her brother, Fernando Jara, also a rider on this circuit. She also had a bruise on her hip.
Fernando Jara said the bleeding on Alexandra Jara’s spleen had subsided to the point where doctors were confident “she’s going to be fine.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Between winning re-election as president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and verbally sparring with Bobby Flay over Lasix at a recent New York Racing Association board meeting, trainer Rick Violette has found time to do what he truly prefers – win races.
Violette has been on quite a roll as of late, winning with five debuting juveniles in the last month, perhaps setting the stage for a bright 2015 in which he already has the multiple Grade 1 stakes-placed colt Upstart for possible Triple Crown prep races.
California Chrome resumed training at Los Alamitos on Thursday, five days after the 2014 Kentucky Derby winner got his fourth Grade 1 win of the year in the $300,000 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar, the eighth stakes win of his career.
Trainer Art Sherman has his sights set on a ninth stakes win. Sherman said Thursday that California Chrome is likely to make his 2015 debut in the $500,000 San Antonio Stakes for older horses over 1 1/8 miles on dirt at Santa Anita on Feb. 7.
“We’ll probably go in the San Antonio,” Sherman said.
