SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Jack Fisher will try to put an exclamation point on what has been a fabulous 2013 Saratoga meet when he sends out a trio of horses led by Mr. Hot Stuff in Thursday’s Grade 1, $150,000 New York Turf Writers Cup Steeplechase.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Dullahan left Dubai in the spring after two poor performances with a crummy souvenir from his international journey: He emerged from an 11th-place finish in the $10 million Dubai World Cup with an illness.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After facing several of the leading members of the handicap division earlier this month in the Grade 1 Whitney, Csaba will get some welcome class relief Thursday at Saratoga when he meets four more suitable rivals in the $100,000 Alydar Stakes.
Highlighted by five Grade 1 races on Sept. 28 that serve as preps to the Breeders’ Cup five weeks later, Santa Anita on Tuesday announced its stakes schedule for its fall meeting, which opens on Sept. 27 and features the 30th running of the Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 1-2.
Santa Anita will have 27 graded stakes during the 24-day season which runs through Nov. 3, including the 14 that make up the two-day Breeders’ Cup. This will be the second of three consecutive years that Santa Anita will play host to the Breeders’ Cup.
Brujo de Olleros, a Group 1 winner in Uruguay in January 2012, earned his first victory in the United States when he scored a convincing win in Monday’s $51,225 Carl Hanford Memorial Stakes at Delaware Park.
Matt Garcia will not need immediate surgery but remains hospitalized after suffering multiple fractures from a sixth-race spill at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale, Calif., on Sunday, according to track publicity director Ellis Davis. Garcia fractured two vertebrae in his neck, the C5 and C6, and two lumbar vertebrae, the L7 and L8, and also broke a rib.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher wanted to try Winning Cause on grass again this summer and was rewarded for that decision with a victory in the one-mile Sir Cat Stakes here four weeks ago. On Wednesday, Pletcher will give Winning Cause a second opportunity to pick up black type on turf when he goes postward as the favorite in the $100,000 Dance of Life Stakes.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Despite not being able to bring Preakness winner Oxbow to the race, trainer D. Wayne Lukas still will make his first Travers appearance in more than a decade with Will Take Charge, a sneaky longshot in Saturday’s $1 million race.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Willet got to the paddock in an unorthodox manner but found her way to the winner’s circle in a most conventional way, circling three wide from off the pace for a convincing 1 3/4-length decision over Clear Pasaj in Monday’s $100,000 Union Avenue Stakes at Saratoga.
The victory avenged Willet’s hard-luck nose setback at the hands of Clear Pasaj on July 25 in the Lotsa Talc Stakes.
