INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Game On Dude, ninth as the favorite in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita last Saturday, may not be done racing this year.
Trainer Bob Baffert said earlier this week that Game On Dude will be considered for the $500,000 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs on Nov. 29. The Grade 1 Clark is run over 1 1/8 miles on the main track.
“The Dude will let me know if he’s up for it,” Baffert said. “It’s a race of interest.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A few days after getting nada at the Breeders’ Cup, Ken Ramsey was still licking his wounds at his farm just outside of Lexington.
“It was kind of what like Caesar said over there in Rome,” said Ramsey. “‘Veni, vidi, non-vici – I came, I saw, and I got my ass kicked.”
Ramsey and his wife, Sarah, had more starters than any other owners on the two-day Breeders’ Cup program at Santa Anita last weekend, and the best any of their six horses could muster was a third-place finish by heavily favored Bobby’s Kitten in the Juvenile Turf.
Tiz Flirtatious, who was sixth in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf, is expected to stay in training in 2014, and could start in the $250,000 Matriarch Stakes at a mile on turf on Dec. 1.
Tiz Flirtatious won the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita in September. In November 2012, Tiz Flirtatious was second in the Matriarch Stakes in her first start in a Grade 1.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Shared Belief, a Candy Ride gelding who won his debut at Golden Gate Fields on Oct. 19, was recently acquired by trainer Jerry Hollendorfer on behalf of a partnership, and will start in Sunday’s $100,000 Hollywood Prevue Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park.
Shared Belief joined Hollendorfer's stable in late October, and has worked twice at Hollywood Park. Tuesday, Shared Belief worked six furlongs in 1:13.20.
Got Shades has made his mark on the grass as a multiple stakes winner, and he finished a troubled fifth in last weekend’s $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita. But when he runs next, he will move to dirt for the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte at Fair Grounds, trainer Danny Pish said. That race is Jan. 18.
Excitement in Northern California was high when She’s a Tiger crossed the finish line a nose in front of Ria Antonia in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita. She’s a Tiger, who trained early in her career and won her debut at Pleasanton, gave Golden Gate Fields simulcast bettors and her connections a thrill – until the inquiry sign began flashing.
The longer the sign flashed, the more her trainer, Jeff Bonde, and part-owner Allen Aldrich felt a sinking feeling in their hearts.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - In the paddock before Cairo Prince made his debut Oct. 6 at Belmont Park, one of the colt’s owners asked trainer Kiaran McLaughlin if he had any horses he felt had the potential to make it to next year’s Kentucky Derby.
“This is our best one,” McLaughlin said. “He kind of looked at me surprised, and I said “And I’m not kidding.’ ”
Apparently, he wasn’t.
Cairo Prince backed up his 2 3/4-length victory that day with a visually impressive 2 1/2-length victory in Sunday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The most noteworthy thing about Wednesday’s races at Churchill Downs is not which horses are racing, but who is back riding there.
Julien Leparoux, who topped the Churchill Downs rider standings nine times from the spring of 2006 through the fall of 2011, has three mounts Wednesday, his first day back as a Churchill regular after relocating from the West Coast. He has the call on 7-2 shot Victory Island in race 2, 3-1 Place Card in race 6, and 12-1 outsider Solitary Life in race 8.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Don’t lower the gate on Verrazano’s racing career just yet.
Though his connections announced that last Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile – in which Verrazano finished fourth – would be the final start of his career, trainer Todd Pletcher said Monday that the multiple Grade 1-winning 3-year-old could run one more time in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 30.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Game On Dude was the pro-tem leader for Horse of the Year coming into the Breeders’ Cup last weekend at Santa Anita, with Princess of Sylmar considered one of the viable candidates should he fail in the Classic.
Both, though, were soundly defeated, Game On Dude faded to ninth in the Classic on Saturday, with Princess of Sylmar last of six in the Distaff on Friday, leaving ol’ reliable Wise Dan as the front-runner to repeat as Horse of the Year following his victory on Saturday in the Mile.
