DEL MAR, Calif. – On Saturday, trainer Phil D’Amato will start the heavily favored Sunday Rules in the $200,000 Fleet Treat Stakes for California-bred 3-year-old fillies over seven furlongs at Del Mar. A win is expected.
“She’s set to run a smasher,” D’Amato said.
Horses entered in the Aug. 2 Whitney Stakes and Aug. 23 Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in New York will be subject to the “enhanced security protocols” that the New York Racing Association and New York Gaming Commission have put in place for a number of Grade 1 races over the past several years, the organizations announced Thursday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – About a dozen flat-screen televisions and the same number of picnic tables were damaged when lightning struck and toppled parts of a tree following the races Wednesday at Saratoga. Fortunately, no people were in the area.
The lightning also destroyed a hot dog stand and knocked out power to a backyard mutuel bay.
OPELOUSAS, La. – In a case of mistaken identity, Evangeline Downs’s stewards disqualified the wrong horse in Thursday night’s fourth race. The matter was quickly rectified, but not before resulting in a second superfecta payoff.
EAST BOSTON, Mass. – It’s all about the bloodlines in this game, so it was no surprise to find apprentice jockey Michael Ritvo in the winner’s circle with his first mount at Suffolk Downs on Wednesday.
Although he was raised in south Florida and began his career in March at Gulfstream Park, the 19-year-old Ritvo’s New England roots run deep. He is the son of former New England rider and trainer Tim Ritvo, now the president of Gulfstream Park, and Kathy Ritvo, who grew up on the backstretch of the local tracks as the daughter of owners and the sister of jockeys and trainers.
Ide Be Cool could be on a collision course with the Grade 2, $400,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs. The reigning Louisiana-bred Horse of the Year is being pointed for the race’s local prep, the $100,000 Prelude on Aug. 2, after recently improving his career record to 7 for 7.
Ide Be Cool faced older horses for the first time in a July 13 allowance at his base of Louisiana Downs. He led throughout for a half-length win in the six-furlong race, his first start since March 1. For the score, Ide Be Cool equaled his career-best 92 Beyer Speed Figure.
Even though we have seen a lot of Medal Count this year, there is a lot we still don’t know about him. His best distance? His preferred racing surface? And, to cut to the chase, where he fits in the 3-year-old division?
Even his trainer, Dale Romans, isn’t sure about the first two questions. “He can do just about anything,” Romans said. “I really don’t know.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Nick Zito got the meet off to a good start Monday, saddling back-to-back winners Another Incident and Tony B. He’s hoping his good fortune will continue here Friday, when he sends out his Grade 2 winner Spot in the wide-open Curlin Stakes.
Spot, the winner of Gulfstream Park’s Swale Stakes going seven furlongs in March, exits a fourth-place finish behind the red-hot Kid Cruz in the Grade 3 Dwyer.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The well-traveled Prayer for Relief, who finished third in the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap when taking his game to New York for the first time on Belmont Stakes Day, will take on an even tougher assignment when wheeling back in the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap here Aug. 2.
