HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Six riders from Gulfstream Park, including Hall of Famer Edgar Prado, gave up some of their time on Monday, a dark day, to visit children at the nearby Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Prado was accompanied by fellow riders Juan Leyva, Jose Valdivia Jr., Jocy Gomez, Fernando and Alexandria Jara as well as Gulfstream Park’s clerk of scales Victor Sanchez.
Shared Belief, in his final work for the Grade 1, $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita, worked a half-mile on Tuesday morning at Golden Gate Fields in 47.60 seconds, and was set to board a van early Wednesday morning for his trip to Southern California.
Shared Belief went alone with exercise rider Ricardo Gonzalez, trainer and co-owner Jerry Hollendorfer said. Hollendorfer said Shared Belief would walk very early Wednesday morning at Golden Gate before getting on a van with several other horses that Hollendorfer is sending to Santa Anita for the weekend.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Clearly Now, who finished eighth as the 4-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga on Aug. 30, will be given 60 days off and aimed to a 5-year-old campaign next year, trainer Brian Lynch said Monday.
Clearly Now, who won the Grade 3 Belmont Sprint Championship here in July and the Grade 3 Bold Ruler Handicap here last fall, was among the nominees to Saturday’s Grade 1 Vosburgh.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Last year, Private Zone shipped to Belmont from Southern California and stole the Grade 1 Vosburgh on the front end.
Saturday, Private Zone will seek a repeat victory in the $400,000 Vosburgh, only his commute will be a lot shorter.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Woodward winner Itsmyluckyday was assigned high weight of 121 pounds for Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park.
Shortly after Itsmyluckyday defeated Moreno in the Grade 1 Woodward, trainer Eddie Plesa announced that Itsmyluckyday would run in the Kelso and not the Jockey Club Gold Cup. In fact, Plesa didn’t even nominate Itsmyluckyday to the Gold Cup.
ELMONT, N.Y. – After posting back-to-back Grade 1 wins with Main Sequence this summer, Graham Motion briefly flirted with the idea of training him up to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita. But in the end, Motion thought the 11 weeks between his victory in the Aug. 17 Sword Dancer and the Breeders’ Cup might be too long.
Jon Court is named on four mounts Saturday at Churchill Downs, which will mark his first rides since the 53-year-old jockey injured his hand in a nasty spill in the final race on the May 3 Kentucky Derby program.
Court was scheduled to see the renowned hand specialist Dr. Joseph Kutz on Tuesday.
“If he gives me the go-ahead, I’ll ride Saturday and Sunday and on into Keeneland,” said Court. “I’ve done a whole lot of rehabbing and the hand is finally feeling good.”
Elliott will ride Keeneland
Trainer Doug O’Neill had thought about sending Goldencents to Keeneland to take on two-time Horse of the Year Wise Dan in the Shadwell Mile. But after working Goldencents over the grass at Santa Anita on Saturday, O’Neill said the turf experiment will be put on hold.
“He breezed on turf the other day and went okay, but my rider said he thought we should work him a couple of more times on it before running him on the grass,” O’Neill said by phone from California on Monday morning. “We’re listening to the horse, and right now he’s telling us not to run him on the turf.”
Thank You Marylou and Fiftyshadesofgold could find themselves rematched at Keeneland after the 3-year-old fillies had a mismatch Saturday at Churchill.
Thank You Marylou, wearing blinkers for the first time, ran off to a 6 1/2-length triumph in the seven-furlong Dogwood Stakes, while Fiftyshadesofgold was fifth, beaten 10 lengths, as the 4-5 favorite.
Drayden Van Dyke, the top apprentice on the Southern California circuit and a leading candidate for an Eclipse Award, will be among the riders back at Kentucky Downs for the closing-day card Wednesday. Van Dyke, who went winless with his six mounts Sept. 6 at Kentucky Downs, is named on three mounts, all for trainer Tom Proctor.
