HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Little Mike missed his last two scheduled starts, the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve at Churchill Downs and the Grade 1 Manhattan, due to licensing disputes between owner-trainer Carlo Vaccarezza and the racing commissions in Kentucky and New York.
Little Mike’s next intended goal was the Arlington Million. But after losing out on the opportunity to get a prep, Vaccarezza has opted to pass that race as well.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – A couple of lightly raced 3-year-olds, Remembertobreathe and Far Niente, passed their first distance test with flying colors last weekend and soon will be joining their respective stakes divisions.
Remembertobreathe figures to be one of the favorites when he runs July 1 in the $50,000 Chris Loseth Handicap. He was impressive in winning a first-level allowance race going 1 1/16 miles with Ryan Pacheco aboard last Sunday.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Normandy Invasion, who is graded stakes placed, and Thirteen Arrows, a recent maiden winner, have been transferred by owner Rick Porter from trainer Chad Brown to Larry Jones, Porter said Thursday.
Porter announced the news regarding Normandy Invasion on the Facebook page of his Fox Hill Farm, the nom de course of his racing operation. Later, in a phone interview, he confirmed that he has also moved Thirteen Arrows, a half-sister to Cross Traffic who won a maiden race by six lengths at Belmont Park on June 1.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Jimmy Iselin brought Willet back off a seven-month layoff in last year’s Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses Handicap, and she finished last. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
So, despite the fact that Willet worked a very strong six furlongs at Aqueduct, Iselin decided to skip Saturday’s $150,000 Bed o’ Roses and instead will wait for the $100,000 Dancin Renee Stakes for New York-breds on July 3.
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ELMONT, N.Y. – In 2005, the New York Racing Association moved the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga back a week to give horses four weeks to the Travers, the marquee race of the meet. Starting that year, the Jim Dandy has produced seven Travers winners.
That statistic is too much for trainer Christophe Clement to ignore. Clement said the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy on July 26 – and not the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth on July 27 – would be the next start for Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist, whose major goal this summer is the $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 23.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – When jockey Eguard Tejera won last Saturday’s fifth race at Lone Star with Dulce de Batata ($27), it was his first North American win since June 26, 2011. The score came in his third start here after spending the past several years riding at his home track of Maronas in Uruguay.
“All my family lives there, and I needed to see my family,” Tejera, 36, said of returning to Uruguay. “At the same time, I was riding there.”
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – A fund for trainer Christie Grisham, who was recently injured in a stable accident at Lone Star, has been set up by the Texas Horsemen’s Partnership to help with medical expenses.
Checks payable to the “Horsemen’s Bookkeeper” and with “Grisham Donation” in the memo line can be sent to: Texas Horsemen’s Partnership, P.O. Box 142533, Austin, Texas 78714. The group represents horsemen in Texas.
◗ Stall applications for Lone Star’s sister track, Remington Park in Oklahoma City, are due Friday. Remington opens a 67-date Thoroughbred meet Aug. 15.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Doris Harwood nominated four horses to Sunday’s Coca-Cola Handicap for 3-year-olds, with the one-two punch of Del Rio Harbor and Noosito likely to dominate the prerace conversation. Del Rio Harbor was Emerald Downs’s champion 2-year-old in 2013, but Noosito is the “now” horse, fresh from a five-length stakes victory in his first start of the year.
Harwood also has Kenai King and Trick or Retreat, and her plan as of Wednesday was to start all four in the one-mile race.
It is well documented that the connections of Wood Memorial winner Wicked Strong named their horse in honor of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013. Initially, they put in for the name Boston Strong, which became the rallying cry of Bostonians in the aftermath of the bombings. But that name was taken.
On Friday, Boston Strong makes his career debut in a six-furlong turf race that goes as the finale on Belmont Park’s nine-race card.
A month ago, the New York racing office struggled to get six horses to enter the Grade 3 Vagrancy Handicap, and only four started.
There was no such dearth of entries for Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Bed o’ Roses Handicap at Belmont Park, which drew a field of 11 fillies and mares.
The co-highweights at 118 pounds are Merry Meadow, who won the Vagrancy at 6-1, and Street Girl, the runner-up in the Grade 1 Humana Distaff at 21-1. Merry Meadow, who will be ridden by Rajiv Maragh, drew post 8, while Street Girl, with Jose Lezcano up, will break from post 10.
