SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Ken McPeek will try to strike while the iron is hot when he wheels the Grade 1-placed Frac Daddy back on just one week’s rest in Sunday’s $150,000 Saranac at Saratoga.
Centre Court, winner of the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland in April, will not race again this year but plans call for her to be put back in training for a potential 2014 campaign, according to trainer Rusty Arnold.
After finishing last in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa here on Aug. 24, Centre Court was sent to the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky. for an examination.
Caviar N Champagne goes for her third consecutive win when she returns from a two-month layoff in the $50,000 Rose Debartolo Memorial for fillies and mares at Thistledown on Sunday afternoon.
DEL MAR, Calif. – There is a pick-six carryover of $81,441 for Friday’s seven-race program at Del Mar.
The bet covers the second through seventh races on a program that starts at 4 p.m. Friday’s card launches the four-day holiday weekend, with racing continuing through Monday. The closing-day program is Wednesday, Sept. 4.
For Friday, there are large fields in the pick-six races.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When 34-1 shot Hunter Forward ran by 4-5 favorite Brandys Secret in deep stretch of Thursday’s 11th race, it created two happy bettors, who each collected $424,936 in Saratoga’s pick six.
There was a two-day carryover of $273,760 entering the card, and an additional $1,010,762 was wagered into the pool on Thursday.
The sequence of 8-4-7-6-1-2 included Nuffsaid ($16.40), Kingston Bay ($4.10), Coal and Ice ($10.80), Lady’s Lunar Luck ($11.40), Bashart ($7.70), and Hunter Forward ($71).
Both winning tickets were sold offtrack.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A few days after Bashart won a maiden race at Saratoga on Aug. 18, owner Jeff Weiss got an e-mail from trainer Todd Pletcher’s assistant notifying him the colt was being pointed for the Grade 2 With Anticipation Stakes.
Weiss, knowing that race was run just 11 days later, shot back an e-mail that read “What are you talking about? You must have the wrong horse.”
Nope, it was the right horse.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Once upon a time, Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga was going to be a spectacular race with eight horses, plenty of speed, and some quality closers.
What remains - after the defections of Cross Traffic on Wednesday and Fort Larned on Thursday - is a good race with six starters, and a whole new pace dynamic, one that could compromise the closers.
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas said he will have a division at Laurel Park this fall in addition to Churchill Downs.
Lukas, the trainer of Travers Stakes winner Will Take Charge, said he will send 15 to 20 horses to Laurel, a division that will then go to Oaklawn Park at the end of the year.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Rydilluc did something here Thursday he hadn’t done in almost four months – work on the main track – although trainer Gary Contessa said the horse, a Grade 3 winner on grass, won’t be racing on dirt anytime soon.
Breezing for the first time since finishing a tiring 11th in the Grade 1 Secretariat on Aug. 17, Rydilluc went an easy half-mile in 49.74 seconds, completing the final quarter-mile in 24.54.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Brazen Persuasion and Bahnah were right next to each other at the finish when they dead-heated for the win in the Grade 3 Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga here on opening day.
