HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Trainer Todd Pletcher said Danza is possible for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby, and if the horse goes he would lift the projected field for the April 12 race at Oaklawn Park to eight. Pletcher already has Commissioner committed, joining expected starters Bayern, Conquest Titan, Ride On Curlin, Strong Mandate, Tapiture, and Thundergram.
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As an impressive winner of the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland last fall, My Conquestadory logically would have been a major candidate for the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes here Saturday.
But the 3-year-old filly pulled a muscle in her hip while training this winter in Florida, delaying her return to racing.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Little Mike moved closer to his 2014 debut after working six furlongs in 1:15.81 shortly after the first renovation break Friday at Gulfstream Park.
With regular exercise rider Faustino Orantes aboard, Little Mike broke off at the five-eighths pole, went in 1:02.82 to the wire, and easily completed the work into the turn before galloping out seven-eighths in 1:28.34.
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Taking a cue from other tracks with major Kentucky Derby preps, Keeneland will put in place extra security procedures for horses entered in the April 12 Blue Grass Stakes and subject the horses to additional testing, the track announced on Thursday.
Kid Cruz, considered by some to be a live longshot in Saturday's Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, will scratch from that race, trainer Linda Rice said Friday.
Rice had said most of the week that Kid Cruz was only "50-50" to run, owing to a shoulder strain she said was diagnosed out of his victory in the Private Terms Stakes.
Though Rice was happy enough with the way Kid Cruz worked Wednesday morning to enter the horse, she was not satisfied with how he came out of the work to run.
When last seen in New York, Wicked Strong was finishing a respectable third in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct, setting him up for a potential trip down the Triple Crown trail.
But Gulfstream Park didn’t agree with Wicked Strong, who finished ninth in the Holy Bull Stakes and fourth in an allowance race, albeit beaten by Constitution, who won last Saturday’s Florida Derby.
Wicked Strong is back in New York and back at Aqueduct, where he will run in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Princess of Sylmar, the four-time Grade 1 stakes-winning 3-year-old filly of 2013, will begin her 4-year-old campaign Sunday in the $100,000 Cat Cay Stakes at Aqueduct.
The Cat Cay, a one-turn, one-mile race, is expected to be used by Princess of Sylmar as a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $1 million Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park on June 7 and a possible rematch with Beholder, who soundly defeated Princess of Sylmar in last November’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff to clinch the 3-year-old filly championship.
He might be an Englishman living happily in Maryland, but in April and October, Graham Motion is as active at Keeneland as any Kentucky hardboot.
Motion had entries in five races on the Friday opener and three more Saturday, a trend in keeping with recent meets. Motion has been in the top five in wins at five straight meets, dating to fall 2011, and usually is among the leaders in starts.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Wednesday announcement by Keeneland officials that they are scrapping their Polytrack surface after almost eight years was not unlike an earthquake, with aftershocks reverberating as word spread.
Thousands took to social media to express their opinions on the decision to switch, which came only after Keeneland conducted “research on every element of the racetrack for the last year,” according to track president Bill Thomason.
Luis Grandison, the racecaller at El Hipodromo Presidente Remon in Panama City, Panama, from 1978-2003, has been hired by the New York Racing Association to provide calls of its races in Spanish, the first time a North American racetrack has hired a full-time Spanish-speaking caller.
Grandison started at Aqueduct on Thursday, the same day that NYRA announced his hiring. Grandison, 57, has also worked with ABC Radio, KW Continente, and Radio Pan-Americana, according to NYRA.
