Bench Warrant and Lord Nelson are bound for the $300,000 Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 3 after winning the first starts of their careers in maiden races over five furlongs on Saturday.
Bench Warrant was timed in 57.97 seconds, winning by 1 1/4 lengths over Remo. Ridden by Tyler Baze, Bench Warrant closed with a rush on the inside in the final furlong.
Miss Serendipity, the winner of the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita in May, will run in the $250,000 John Mabee Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 1/8 miles on turf on Aug. 10.
Trainer Ron McAnally said on Sunday that he prefers the Grade 2 Mabee Stakes to the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park on Aug. 16.
“I thought about going back there, but it’s a long trip,” he said. “With the European horses coming over, it’s not an easy race.”
DEL MAR, Calif.- Jockey Eswan Flores, who has struggled to gain business this year, was suspended by Del Mar stewards on Sunday for failing to appear at a morning hearing regarding a missed drug test in late June, the stewards announced in a ruling.
Flores was scheduled to meet with stewards Scott Chaney, Luis Jauregui, and Kim Sawyer on Sunday, but did not attend. He contacted the stewards through an intermediary and later arrived at the track for a drug test administered by California Horse Racing Board investigators, stewards said.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – It was a typically busy Sunday morning at Saratoga, and also typically, Palace Malice made the strongest impression, working a very strong five furlongs in preparation for the Grade 1, $1.5 million Whitney Handicap Invitational on Aug. 2.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Somali Lemonade, winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Diana Stakes at Saratoga, was scheduled to van back to trainer Michael Matz’s Fair Hill stable on Monday but plans for her next race remain undetermined.
Matz said he would consider the Grade 1, $750,000 Beverly D. at Arlington Park on Aug. 16, but was a little concerned about running her back in four weeks. The Diana was the fifth race of the year and fourth in four months for Somali Lemonade.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Samraat, the multiple stakes-winning New York-bred 3-year-old, will miss the remainder of the year after being diagnosed with a stress fracture to his right shin, trainer Rick Violette said Sunday.
Samraat, who had won the Withers and the Gotham - both Grade 3 stakes at Aqueduct - had been pointing to Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes here as a stepping-stone to the $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 23. Violette said while the injury is not life-threatening or career-threatening, it likely will keep Samraat sidelined for the rest of the year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Big Trouble and Mr. Z, separated by a neck when finishing first and second in Saturday’s Grade 3 Sanford Stakes, could have a rematch in the Grade 1, $350,000 Hopeful Stakes here on Sept. 1, closing day of the Saratoga meet.
Tony Dutrow, trainer of Big Trouble, said his horse came out of the Sanford “excellent” and though his initial inclination was not to run back in the Hopeful, after considering the lack of options for 2-year-olds moving forward, he said “I’ve got to be considering the Hopeful. It’d be stupid not to think of the Hopeful.”
Though he won his last race on the turf, Belmont Derby winner Mr Speaker will be given the chance to earn a start in the Travers Stakes by trainer Shug McGaughey.
McGaughey said he plans to give Mr Speaker several works on the dirt over the next few weeks and will evaluate how he trains before deciding between the Travers or the Grade 3, $300,000 Saranac on turf on closing day.
“I’ll give him an opportunity,” McGaughey said Saturday. “If he doesn’t act like that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we won’t do.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In an attempt to change Wicked Strong’s luck, trainer Jimmy Jerkens will change equipment, putting blinkers on the 3-year-old colt for next Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga.
On Saturday, Wicked Strong worked in blinkers for the first time, breezing six furlongs in 1:13.06 over Saratoga’s main track. Though exercise rider Kelvin Pahal was asking Wicked Strong to finish from the eighth pole to the wire, Wicked Strong proceeded to gallop out a solid six furlongs in 1:26.09 and seven furlongs in 1:39.21.
