ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown is taking his best shot at Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont Park. With no suitable spots to split them up before the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 2, Brown will run the Grade 1-winning pair of Real Solution and Big Blue Kitten. The 1 1/2-mile test on the Widener course is a Win and You’re In race for the BC Turf.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There is no real favorite and no real throwout. The Grade 3 Jefferson Cup, which directly follows the Homecoming Classic on the Saturday night program at Churchill Downs, is just one of those races that drew nine horses that look very similar in ability and promises to confound horseplayers.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – On Rainbow Bridge and the improving Lexie Lou will renew their rivalry Saturday at Woodbine in the $125,000 Victorian Queen, a six-furlong stakes for Ontario-sired 2-year-old fillies.
Lexie Lou finished well behind On Rainbow Bridge in the latter’s two stakes triumphs, in the 5 1/2-furlong Shady Well and the six-furlong Nandi.
Labor Day at Finger Lakes couldn’t have been any more spectacular for owner-breeders Dennis and Deborah Petrisak, their trainer M. Anthony Ferraro, and jockey Pedro Rodriguez, who combined to sweep a pair of six-figure stakes for 2-year-olds. Saturday, however, could produce an even bigger thrill for the racing team if Fox Rox can win the 51st running of the $237,457 New York Breeders’ Futurity.
SHELBYVILLE, Ind. – Express Model came from off the pace to win Wednesday’s $90,090 Indiana Stallion at Indiana Downs.
Trained by Bernie Flint and ridden by Leandro Goncalves, Express Model was kept back off quick early fractions until upper stretch. Goncalves went to work, and the Indiana-bred filly surged to the front for a 1 1/2-length victory. Secondhand Justice, under Fernando De La Cruz, was second, a length in front of Tricia’s Trauma.
Express Model bested the field of Indiana-bred 2-year-old fillies in 1.11.96 over a fast track and returned $5.20.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Last year, Royal Delta suffered only two defeats in North America. Trainer Todd Pletcher was responsible for both of them.
Saturday, Pletcher will go for a hat trick of sorts when he sends out Princess of Sylmar, the leading 3-year-old filly in the country, against two-time champion Royal Delta in the Grade 1, $400,000 Beldame Invitational at Belmont Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Get comfortable.
Starting Friday, approximately seven of the next nine months of Thoroughbred racing in Southern California will be held at Santa Anita, which opens a 24-day autumn meeting on Friday highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 1-2. The six-week season will present a mix of familiar and new elements for racing fans who have made the picturesque racetrack one of the most popular in the United States.
AUBURN, Wash. – With Emerald Downs claimer-of-the-meeting honors to be announced Sunday on the final day of the meeting, Southern Solution can throw his name into the running with a victory in the feature race Friday, a $15,000 claimer for 3-year-olds at one mile. First post for the seven-race card is 6:45 p.m. Pacific.
Southern Solution has four victories at Emerald Downs this summer, and only one other Thoroughbred has more. Kind of Naughty, who captured an allowance race last Sunday, has five victories at the meeting, three of which came against claimers.
Trainer Keith Nations enjoyed decent success in Northern California, particularly in 2012 when he got his first stakes victory with Bailouttheminister in the Sam Whiting at Pleasanton and then won the Joseph Grace at Santa Rosa and the Bull Dog at Fresno with Control Seeker. But he has left Northern California and is now stabling horses at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa., near Philadelphia.
Being on the virtual racing island that is Northern California, Nations has won at a respectable 19 percent over his career, but he said that opportunities for his horses were becoming fewer.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Jimmy Iselin didn’t want Willet, his New York-bred stakes-winning mare, to go nine weeks between starts, so while it might not be ideal, Willet will run in Friday’s $100,000 Princess Dixie Stakes at Belmont Park.
Iselin is pointing Willet to the $150,000 Iroquois Stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares, a race she won last year by 9 1/4 lengths. The Iroquois is at seven furlongs. Friday’s Princess Dixie is scheduled for 7 1/2 furlongs.
