DEL MAR, Calif. – Iron Fist, purchased for $1.55 million at the Keeneland September yearling sale last year, will make his career debut in Saturday’s first race for 2-year-old maidens over five furlongs.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer described the gray colt by Tapit as a prospect capable of living up to his purchase price. Iron Fist races for Regis Farms and Stonestreet Stable.
“Everything has been good,” Hollendorfer said. “He should be ready to go five furlongs.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – After starts in graded stakes at Santa Anita in April and May, Premier Steps might find the $90,000 Osunitas Stakes at Del Mar on Saturday to be just what she needs to win her first stakes of 2014.
Trained by Tom Proctor, Premier Steps was third in the Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes over a mile April 27 and fifth in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes over 1 1/8 miles May 26. The Gamely was the longest career race for Premier Steps, who was beaten four lengths by the winner, Miss Serendipity. The Osunitas is run over 1 1/16 miles on turf.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The turf miler No Jet Lag, who made a splashy debut here last summer, worked five furlongs on Polytrack in 1:00 on Wednesday in preparation for his comeback in the $90,000 Wickerr Stakes on July 23.
The time was the best of the morning among 53 works at the distance.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Christophe Clement likes to ship horses to California for stakes races. He’s thinking of staying a little longer this fall.
Clement said he plans on keeping about a dozen horses at Del Mar for its fall meeting, which comes on the heels of the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita and takes up many of the dates formerly held by Hollywood Park, which closed last December.
Trainer Ian Wilkes will put his promising 3-year-old filly Taketheodds right to the acid test here Sunday when she faces Grade 1 opposition for the first time in the Coaching Club American Oaks.
Wilkes said he had already considered running Taketheodds in the 1 1/8-mile Oaks even before the news broke that division leader Untapable would bypass the race in lieu of the Haskell at Monmouth Park one week later.
In less than a year, jockey Taylor Rice went from hanging on to fitting in.
A year ago at this time, Rice still hadn’t ridden in her first race. She spent most of her July afternoons standing alongside the starting gate at Presque Isle Downs, watching how riders and horses behaved and broke from the gate.
Richard Baltas had two horses when he went out on his own anew as a trainer two years ago, was up to 22 when Del Mar started last summer, and now has 38 runners, headed by the stakes-winning older sprinter Big Macher, who is scheduled to make his next start July 27 in the Grade 1, $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes.
That extra business has caused Baltas to add to his staff, and he has brought aboard the well-known exercise rider David Meah, who most recently worked for Doug O’Neill and will take on added responsibilities under Baltas.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Alterite was good enough to win a Grade 1 stakes in her first start in the United States last September. She’s going to have to be even better in order to win a Grade 1 in her first start of her 4-year-old season in Saturday’s $500,000 Diana Stakes at Saratoga.
A win in the Grade 3 Senorita Stakes at Santa Anita on June 28 is the defining performance in the career of Sheza Smoke Show. But it only makes her one of several contenders in Saturday’s $200,000 San Clemente Stakes at Del Mar.
With conditions similar to the Senorita – 3-year-old fillies running a mile on turf – trainer Peter Eurton is confident that Sheza Smoke Show can repeat that effort in the Grade 2 San Clemente.
“Her energy level is good,” Eurton said. “It won’t be an easy spot, but it never is in a Grade 2.”
Social Inclusion, who finished third as the favorite behind runaway winner Bayern in the Grade 2 Woody Stephens on June 7 at Belmont Park, sizzled a half-mile in 45.65 at Gulfstream Park on Wednesday as he continues to prepare for the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth a week from Sunday.
According to the track clockers, Social Inclusion was all out most of the way while posting a 22.63 opening quarter split and he galloped out five-eighths in 59.61.
