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.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Nick Zito has won the Kentucky Derby twice. He’d love nothing more than to win a third Derby someday for one of his newest clients, Joseph Moss, the owner of Spot, an up-and-coming 3-year-old who became a Grade 2 winner Saturday, when he upset the previously undefeated No Nay Never in the seven-furlong Swale Stakes.
Even the ever-optimistic Zito has no delusions about Spot winning the Derby, although he does believe the improving son of Pulpit could contend in a Triple Crown race later this spring.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Euphrosyne, who shares a unique name with a quality mare of yesteryear, is one of the more promising 3-year-old fillies set to run in the Grade 3, $150,000 Honeybee at Oaklawn on Saturday. She was second in last month’s $100,000 Martha Washington in her stakes debut, after launching her career last fall at Belmont Park.
ARCADICA, cALIF. - The American debut of Rhagori in Friday’s third race could lead to a stakes appearance in the near future.
Trainer Simon Callaghan has high expectations for the 5-year-old mare, who was purchased by Michael House at auction last December for approximately $150,000.
“She’s a filly I like,” Callaghan said. “I think she’s going to progress from this race.”
ARCADIA, Calif. - Secret Circle, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last November, remains on schedule for a start in the $2 million Golden Shaheen Sprint in Dubai on March 29, trainer Bob Baffert said.
Secret Circle has run once this year, finishing second by a neck to Wild Dude in the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Stakes over six furlongs on Feb. 2. Baffert admitted that he has some hesitation about a trip to Dubai, wondering how Secret Circle will handle the Tapeta Footings synthetic track.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Beholder, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2013, continues to train toward a springtime comeback. Monday, Beholder breezed three furlongs in 34.80 seconds, the fastest of 21 recorded works at the distance.
In Southern California, horses are typically described as working in a handily fashion, but Beholder earned the designation of breezing with an easier workout.
Remington Park in Oklahoma City opens one of the nation’s premier Quarter Horse meets Friday night, with a stakes schedule worth more than $4.3 million and jockey G.R. Carter on the countdown to becoming the sport’s all-time winningest jockey. The track’s 50-date season will run through June 1.
