HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – On the heels of Social Inclusion’s record-setting, 10-length allowance victory over Honor Code on Wednesday at Gulfstream Park, owner Ron Sanchez’s phone has been ringing off the hook with offers to buy all or a portion of the 3-year-old sensation.
The Rebel Stakes for 3-year-olds will be supported by the Grade 2, $200,000 Azeri and the Grade 3, $200,000 Razorback Handicap on a Saturday card bolstered this year to create a preview day for some of the Racing Festival of the South stakes the final week of the Oaklawn Park meet.
The Azeri drew a field of seven when entries were taken Wednesday. The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares, designed to produce starters for the Grade 1, $600,000 Apple Blossom, will go as the eighth race. It’s the first of the stakes, which will be run consecutively Saturday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – If trainer Billy Gowan needs any Hall of Fame advice with Ride On Curlin, who runs Saturday in the Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park, he just needs to walk a few paces up his shed row to the stable of Jack Van Berg.
“It’s great to be able to pick his brain,” Gowan said.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Ken McPeek said he was both pleased and frustrated with Golden Ticket’s second-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap. Golden Ticket rallied to reach even terms with the victorious Palace Malice in late stretch before being outkicked to the wire, dropping a head decision while making his first start since the Grade 1 Stephen Foster more than three months earlier.
[Clocker Reports: Get Mike Welsch’s clocker reports from Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows]
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.
