SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Fiftyshadesofgold worked four furlongs in 48.40 seconds Friday morning at Churchill Downs, her final breeze before running in the Grade 1, $500,000 Test Stakes here on Aug. 2.
The work was the fastest of 58 moves Friday morning at Churchill Downs and it was the fourth straight bullet work Fiftyshadesofgold has fired in the last month.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Golden Ticket, whose finest hour came at Saratoga two summers ago when he dead-heated for first with Alpha in the Grade 1 Travers, will finally get a second chance to compete at the Spa in next Saturday’s Grade 1 Whitney.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It wasn’t the eye-catching, stopwatch-cracking workout that we’ve become accustomed to from Wise Dan. But it wasn’t a workout that had trainer Charlie LoPresti ready to pack up his belongings and head back to Kentucky either.
Santa Anita has raised the purses of 10 stakes run during its autumn meeting from Sept. 26 to Nov. 2, a season that includes the Breeders’ Cup races on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
To comply with national standards for graded stakes purses, prize money for six Grade 1 races have been raised from $250,000 to $300,000 – the FrontRunner, Awesome Again, Rodeo Drive, Zenyatta, Chandelier, and Santa Anita Sprint Championship. The races are run Sept. 27 and Oct. 4 and are preps for Breeders’ Cup races.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Rock Fall, who would have gone postward one of the favorites, will be scratched from Saturday’s Grade 2 Amsterdam, trainer Todd Pletcher said on Friday.
“I wasn’t happy with the way he’s been travelling and I’m going to send him to Kentucky for some tests,” said Pletcher.
Rock Fall, a son of Speightstown owned by Stonestreet Stables LLC, was an easy winner of his last two starts after finishing far back making his career debut this spring at Gulfstream Park. The Amsterdam was to have been his stakes debut.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When Stanwyck won last fall’s Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm Handicap at Belmont at 21-1, trainer John Shirreffs said she really thrived while training at Saratoga.
On Sunday, Shirreffs hopes that trend continues when Stanwyck runs in the Grade 3, $200,000 Shuvee Handicap for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles.
Stanwyck, a 5-year-old daughter of Empire Maker, will be making her first start since April 11, when she finished third behind Close Hatches and On Fire Baby in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Constitution, the undefeated Florida Derby winner who was sidelined by a shin injury, breezed a quarter-mile Wednesday at WinStar Farm as he attempts to make it back to the races later this year.
Elliott Walden, president and chief executive of WinStar Farm, which owns Constitution, said the horse would remain at WinStar for three or four more weeks before shipping to trainer Todd Pletcher’s Saratoga stable. Walden said he hoped Constitution could be ready to make it back to the races by “late September or early October.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Aldrin, a three-quarter brother to the hot stallion Tapit, makes his career debut Saturday at Saratoga in what looks to be a hot 2-year-old race. The race, carded as the third on an 11-race card, is at six furlongs.
Aldrin, a $1 million purchase as a juvenile in training, is by Malibu Moon and out of the dam Tap Your Heels, her first foal since Kalavinka in 2008. Tapit won the Grade 1 Wood Memorial in 2004.
VANCOUVER, B.C. – Koffee Grinder clearly is the leader of the 3-year-old open division at Hastings, and he is going to be a very short price on Aug. 4 to win the British Columbia Cup Stellar’s Jay on British Columbia Cup Day. Cup Day features six stakes races restricted to British Columbia-breds, and considering how impressive Koffee Grinder was in handling open company when he stretched out to 1 1/16 miles for the first time July 1 in the $50,000 Chris Loseth Handicap, he is going to be a handful in the restricted Stellar’s Jay.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. – Patricia Moseley’s homebred Victor Laszlo goes for the three-peat when he takes on a field of seven other Massachusetts-breds in the $25,000 Last Dance Stakes at one mile and 70 yards Saturday with regular rider Tammi Piermarini aboard.
