DEL MAR, Calif. – Great Lou is nominated to the Grade 3, $100,000 Bob Hope Stakes for 2-year-olds on Saturday, but trainer Leandro Mora said he was more likely to run Thursday in race 6, a starter allowance going six furlongs.
Great Lou cruised to a 4 1/2-length victory in his debut Oct. 24 at Santa Anita when facing maiden claimers.
“I don’t want to throw him to the lions,” Mora said.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Not having a point of reference as to how this fall meeting would unfold at Del Mar was like “having just one leg on the dock,” said Joe Harper, Del Mar’s president and chief executive. Yet three days into this 15-day voyage, the ship is steady as she goes.
After an extraordinarily successful summer and fall in New Jersey and Kentucky, jockey Paco Lopez has come home to Florida.
Lopez dominated the standings at Monmouth Park this summer, winning 120 races at the meet, more than twice as many as runner-up Gabriel Saez. Lopez set a record for victories in a day at Monmouth, winning seven races on a card not once but twice.
The title was the third at Monmouth for Lopez, who also led the standings in 2013 and 2010. He was second at Monmouth in both 2011 and 2012.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The results of the Breeders’ Cup last weekend at Santa Anita were met with delight by officials at Keeneland, the Lexington, Ky., track where the championships will be held for the first time next Oct. 30-31.
Three of the 13 Breeders’ Cup winners – Dayatthespa, Work All Week, and Take Charge Brandi – ran their final prep races at Keeneland, while a fourth, Judy the Beauty, trained toward the Breeders’ Cup exclusively at Keeneland.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The New York Racing Association will begin holding quarterly meetings seeking input from horseplayers, fans, and members of the local communities of its three tracks – Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga. The first meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15 at 9:30 a.m. at Longshots, a simulcasting facility on the second floor at Aqueduct.
Christopher Kay, NYRA’s chief executive and president, said each quarterly meeting will be scheduled for a Saturday in order to make it convenient for people to attend.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – House Rules, who won an off-the-turf second-level allowance race in the mud Thursday, likely will make her next start in the Grade 3, $400,000 Comely Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on Nov. 29, trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Friday.
It was the second allowance win in the last three starts for House Rules, who in between finished last behind Untapable in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx on Sept. 20. Jerkens, who took over the training of House Rules earlier this year from his father, Allen, said Javier Castellano rode the filly Thursday the way she wants to be ridden.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Aqueduct will be open for live racing Monday, the day before Veterans Day, and will take the time to salute war veterans. First post for Monday’s nine-race card is 12:20 p.m.
Following the fourth race, the New York Racing Association will conduct a special trophy presentation recognizing the courage and sacrifices made by service members and veteran-services employees.
This has been a bittersweet week at the barn of trainer Leandro Mora, for less than 24 hours after Goldencents won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile for the second straight year, he was on a plane to Kentucky, where he will begin his stud career next spring at Spendthrift Farm.
“It’s a bit of a void,” said Jack Sisterson, an assistant to Mora and Mora’s boss, Doug O’Neill, who is currently on suspension. “He was in the first stall, next to the office. You’d walk in at 3:30 or 4 in the morning, and his head was always out, ready to go.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Shared Belief is back at Golden Gate Fields and won’t be leaving anytime soon. His trainer and co-owner, Jerry Hollendorfer, said Shared Belief is being freshened, and the only chance he would run before the end of the year is if Hollendorfer decides to go in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on that track’s opening day, Dec. 26. Otherwise, Shared Belief will await 2015.
