The El Joven and La Senorita, a pair of one-mile turf races for 2-year-olds, will again highlight the stakes program at Retama Park near San Antonio, Texas, which opens its Thoroughbred meet Oct. 4. The season will run every Friday and Saturday night through Dec. 28.
The El Joven, for colts and geldings, and the La Senorita, for fillies, will each be worth $75,000 on Nov. 9.
Pucker Up Pete will be seeking to win his fifth straight race when he makes his stakes debut in Friday night’s $50,000 Remington Park Turf Sprint. The five-furlong turf race is for 3-year-olds and up bred in Oklahoma. Others making up the six-horse field include defending champ Conkigo and multiple stakes winner and first-time turfer Okie Ride.
Lone Star Park will again put on the richest race in Texas during its annual Quarter Horse meet that opens on Friday night. The Dallas area track is the home of the $1 million Texas Classic Futurity, a 400-yard race to be run on the closing program Nov. 9.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – From the sound of his name, you might imagine Solitary Ranger left the Arlington backstretch to roam the Great Plains in a dark, weather-beaten long coat. Nope – his departure Wednesday was on a horse van bound for Keeneland, where Solitary Ranger will make his next start after winning for the first time in the Grade 3, $150,000 Arlington-Washington Futurity last weekend.
A pair of optional claimers with first-level allowance conditions highlight a Friday the 13th card at Belmont Park peppered with five maiden races, including an $85,000 turf route for maiden 2-year-old fillies that is the richest race of the day.
The incredible success for the stallion Kitten’s Joy on Aug. 17 would have been even greater if only his 5-year-old son Suntracer had run a little faster in the $400,000 American St. Leger on the Arlington Million undercard.
“Another half-length or so and we could’ve been in on the party, too,” said Chris Block, noting how Suntracer finished second by that margin to Dandino in the St. Leger.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Patrick Husbands, who has been on the sidelines since May 20, will return to action Friday.
Husbands had suffered two broken bones in his leg and a fractured ankle when his mount, A Tough Buck, collapsed just past the finish line.
“I’ve been riding for 25 years, and I never got a chance to do some of the things I wanted to do,” said Husbands, who turned 40 just two days after his accident. “I got a chance to go to a lot of places.”
The first place Husbands went following his mishap was his homeland.
Purses at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla., will be raised 15 percent across the board when the track’s meet begins Dec. 4 due to a surge in revenues from the track’s new designation as a simulcast hub in the state, the track announced Wednesday.
Trainer Genaro Vallejo may have gone against the grain when he put down $12,500 to claim the 10-year-old Cost of Freedom at Golden Gate Fields on April 6 for Battle Born Racing and Nick Ferrara.
The Cee’s Tizzy gelding won his second straight race that day but went to the sidelines for 11 weeks before a last-place finish for $16,000 at Pleasanton on June 29. That was followed by a fifth-place finish as the even-money favorite under Russell Baze in an $8,000 turf sprint at Santa Rosa.
BOSSIER CITY, La. – One would think that with last Saturday’s Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby out of the way, the final two weeks of the Louisiana Downs season would merely be an afterthought. For serious horseplayers, however, the exact opposite may be true.
