ARCADIA, Calif. – The 3-year-olds Bayern and Bond Holder, absent from major stakes Saturday because of foot ailments, had quiet days on Friday on opposite sides of the country.
Bayern was withdrawn from Saturday’s $300,000 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita because of foot bruise detected Thursday. He stayed in trainer Bob Baffert’s barn at Santa Anita on Friday.
“He won’t go to the track for a few days,” Baffert said. “He’s in a holding pattern.”
CYPRESS, Calif. – After a week lost to wet weather from Feb. 28 to March 2, Los Alamitos resumed its mixed meeting for Quarter Horses and lower-level Thoroughbreds this weekend, filling races without difficulty but still coping with small fields.
The track races from Friday through Sunday. This weekend, there were 59 horses entered in eight races for Friday, 60 in eight races for Saturday, and 59 entered for nine races Sunday. There are 12 races for Thoroughbreds racing for claiming prices of $5,000 or less, and 13 races for Quarter Horses at a variety of levels.
Veteran jockey John Jacinto, who hasn’t ridden in a race since breaking his left arm in a spill in May at Louisiana Downs, got on horses Wednesday and rode in workouts Thursday morning at Fair Grounds.
“I’m going to be here working the next couple weeks to be able to ride,” Jacinto said. “I’m going to be riding the last two weeks for sure. I need to get fit.”
Jacinto said he underwent four surgeries.
“They had to fix my bones and muscle,” he said. One surgery was to repair a tendon in his thumb, he said. Two plates were inserted in his arm, and one plate remains.
NEW ORLEANS – Jose Camejo’s career path in racing changed suddenly, with a spill in a race almost three years ago at Evangeline Downs.
In the sixth race on May 28, 2011, Camejo was riding Kellys Next Storm, who was running in second place when he slipped and fell at the quarter pole.
“People told me he got up and starting running again,” said Camejo, whose neck was broken.
He broke four vertebrae. He said he spent six days in a hospital but luckily didn’t need surgery.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Jerome Stakes winner Noble Moon continued his preparation for the Grade 1 Wood Memorial on April 5 with a four-furlong workout in 49.44 seconds Thursday morning over the Belmont Park training track. With Irad Ortiz Jr. up, Noble Moon went his first quarter in 24.30 seconds and his second quarter in 25.14 over a stretch that appeared to be on the deep side. Noble Moon galloped out five furlongs in 1:03.12 and six furlongs in 1:18.36.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The multiple graded stakes winner Summer Applause, who was scratched from last Saturday’s Grade 2 Top Flight after suffering a minor injury to her hock in her stall at Aqueduct, will most likely be retired and bred, according to trainer Chad Brown.
Brown said the injury wasn’t as significant as its timing. The Top Flight, which Summer Applause won last year, was to help determine whether Summer Applause would continue to race throughout her 5-year-old season or be bred in the spring.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After sweeping Aqueduct’s winter series of two-turn stakes for fillies and mares, Teen Pauline will likely be headed out of town for her next start.
Trainer Todd Pletcher, via text message, indicated Thursday that Teen Pauline could run next in either the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap at 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn on April 11 or the Grade 3, $150,000 Sixty Sails Handicap at 1 1/8 miles at Hawthorne on April 19.
Eric Johnston, the vice president of racing at Sam Houston Race Park in Texas, will start a new job in April as the director of racing operations at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pa., the parent company of Penn National announced Thursday.
Johnston, who is a native of Grantville, has been at Sam Houston since the track’s opening in 1994, first as its stakes coordinator and then as its director of racing and racing secretary. At Sam Houston, Johnston also oversaw the track’s mutuel, simulcast, and player services departments.
A field of eight older runners, led by 2013 Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice and Preakness runner-up Itsmyluckyday, was drawn Wednesday for Saturday’s Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap. Both horses will be making their 4-year-old debuts in the one-mile fixture.
Palace Malice will be ridden by Velazquez, while Paco Lopez, who won the Gulfstream Park Derby aboard Itsmyluckyday last winter, has the mount back Saturday.
[Gulfstream Park Handicap: Get PPs, watch Saturday's card live]
A pair of $100,000 stakes races for Thoroughbreds will again highlight the Arapahoe Park mixed meet that opens on May 24. The Aurora, Colo., track released its stakes schedule on Wednesday. The 39-date season will run on a Friday through Sunday basis through Aug. 17.
