HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Jose Garoffalo said Wildcat Red will work for the first time since capturing the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes almost three weeks earlier either Friday or Saturday morning, depending upon the weather.
“Right now, the plan is still to take him to the Florida Derby,” Garoffalo said. “He’s doing well, he doesn’t need too much. He’ll just gallop strong and have a couple of easy works before his next start.”
Turfway Park is expecting a full field of 12 3-year-olds for its marquee race, the Grade 3, $550,000 Spiral Stakes on March 22.
Tamarando, trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, looks like the probable favorite off his victory in the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Feb. 15. Hollendorfer has won the Spiral twice, with Event of the Year in 1997 and Globalize in 2000.
The Spiral offers 85 qualifying points for the May 3 Kentucky Derby, with 50 points to the winner.
The $1 million Wood Memorial, New York’s final prep for the Kentucky Derby, will be shown on NBC Sports as part of a 90-minute broadcast that also will include the Santa Anita Derby.
The Wood will be race 10 on a 12-race card on April 5 that will begin at 1 p.m. Eastern, instead of the usual 1:20 p.m. Post time for the Wood is 5:40 p.m., and it is one of four graded stakes on the program.
Also on the Wood card are the Grade 1 Carter Handicap, which will be run as race 11, and the Bay Shore and Gazelle, two stakes that will precede the Wood.
Richard Bomze, a champion New York breeder who campaigned millionaire full brothers Fourstardave and Fourstars Allstar, died Tuesday night at his home in Hollywood, Fla., after a long battle with emphysema. He was 76.
Bomze was owner and president of Star Sports Corp., which published American Turf Monthly. He also owned a phone service company, Sports Reporter, which made selections on professional sports.
He got involved in horse ownership in the 1980s and was New York state’s top breeder in 1990, 1991, and 1993.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Mucho Macho Man returned to his winter home at Gulfstream Park late Wednesday afternoon following his fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap.
Trainer Kathy Ritvo said she has no real explanation for why Mucho Macho Man faltered badly through the stretch and was beaten 10 1/2 lengths by Game On Dude, a horse he had defeated decisively over the same track four months earlier in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After finding open-stakes company a little too much for him to handle at this point, the New York-bred Eye Luv Lulu faces competition against whom he is a better fit in Friday’s $62,000 allowance feature at Aqueduct.
Though this six-furlong heat is a first-level allowance for open company, Eye Luv Lulu is one of three New York-breds in the five-horse field. Bass River Road and Geaux Mets, like Eye Luv Lulu, have all won first-level New York-bred allowance races over the inner track this winter with the same 74 Beyer Speed Figure.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Strong Mandate’s training for the Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Saturday has been designed to shake off the memory of the out-of-sorts trip he had when second in last month’s Southwest Stakes. He is one of eight horses that were entered in the Rebel when the race was drawn on Wednesday. Strong Mandate will break from post 4.
Vicar’s in Trouble will be returning to Fair Grounds for the Louisiana Derby on March 29, according to owner Ken Ramsey, after a foot ailment forced the horse’s connections to rule out the March 23 Sunland Park Derby.
The winner of the Jan. 18 Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds by nearly seven lengths, Vicar’s in Trouble was sent to trainer Mike Maker’s main winter base at Gulfstream Park after the colt ran third as the favorite in the Feb. 22 Risen Star at Fair Grounds.
WHO’S HOT
Ring Weekend, the winner of the Tampa Bay Derby, is one of four additions to this week’s Derby Watch top 20, along with Bobby’s Kitten, who won an allowance race at Tampa in his 2014 debut, and both Hoppertunity and Tamarando, who were “On the Bubble” horses in previous weeks and finally forged their way onto the list.
[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]
Jockey Anne Von Rosen underwent surgery Tuesday night for a serious spinal injury suffered in a spill at Turf Paradise earlier in the day.
Von Rosen, 43, was pulling up Panchita Bonita after a 400-yard Quarter Horse event, and on the backstretch, the horse took a bad step and went down, flipping over and ending up on top of Von Rosen.
The jockey, currently third in the riders’ standings, was rushed to the local John C. Lincoln Hospital for surgery, according to track officials.
Panchita Bonita, who had run second, was uninjured.
