DEL MAR, Calif. - A patient ride by jockey Martin Garcia helped Sarach win her second stakes of 2013 in Friday’s $95,700 Sandy Blue Handicap at Del Mar.
Sarach won the Grade 2 Honeymoon Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park in June by leading throughout the turf race over 1 1/8 miles under Garcia. In the Sandy Blue, Garcia used stalking tactics to win the one-mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies.
Hes Relentless and Wagon Tales emerged as the fastest qualifiers for the Grade 1, $2.6 million All American Futurity for Quarter Horses after two days of trials for the Labor Day Classic. The 28 qualifying heats drew 280 entrants and spanned Thursday and Friday at Ruidoso Downs, and the horses with the five fastest times from each day earned one of 10 spots in the finale. It was the first time the trials had been divided over two programs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Tell a Great Story will be scratched out of Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga after breaking out in hives Friday morning, according to a press release on the website of Sagamore Farm, which owns the 3-year-old filly.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Eric Guillot said he has no regrets putting in a $100,000 claim for Teaks North, who finished last here Thursday, and if all goes well, he plans to point him to the Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita in November.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Dance to Bristol, winner of six consecutive races including the Grade 2 Honorable Miss Stakes at Saratoga on July 29, will arrive here Sunday for her first Grade 1 opportunity in next Friday's $500,000 Ballerina Stakes.
On Friday, Dance to Bristol worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds at the former Bowie Racecourse in Maryland.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A slight change of tactics led to change in result as Awesome Vision outkicked Bigger Is Better to win Friday’s $100,000 Saratoga Sunrise Stakes by one length at Saratoga.
The win came 25 days after Bigger Is Bettor defeated Awesome Vision by a head in the $100,000 Evan Shipman Stakes.
Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. said he moved Awesome Vision toward the leaders a little earlier on Friday than he did in the Evan Shipman. That and the fact Awesome Vision changed leads in the stretch - something he didn’t do in the Evan Shipman - made the difference.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Centre Court finished a disappointing fifth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Diana Stakes here last month, and trainer Rusty Arnold believes he has a reason.
Centre Court had a foot abscess out of the race, Arnold said Friday. But Centre Court is apparently a quick healer as she has now worked twice since the Diana in preparation for a start in next Saturday's Grade 2, $250,000 Ballston Spa Stakes at Saratoga.
AUBURN, Wash. – When the jockeys with mounts in the Longacres Mile assemble in the Emerald Downs paddock for the traditional prerace photograph Sunday afternoon, Debbie Hoonan will be there to rub elbows with some of the sport’s brightest lights. Russell Baze, a member of the National Racing Hall of Fame and Hoonan’s distant relative, will be present to ride likely favorite Politicallycorrect, and Mario Gutierrez, who won the 2012 Kentucky Derby with I’ll Have Another, has the call on Hoist.
There’s no point belaboring the obvious virtues of Princess of Sylmar in Saturday’s Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga, and to my mind no point trying to beat her.
Rylees Boy, the Quarter Horse champion aged horse and gelding of 2012, starts for the first time since February in Sunday’s $79,000 Bank of America California Challenge at Los Alamitos.
An 8-year-old, Rylees Boy won his last start, the track’s Winter Championship, earning an automatic berth to the Champion of Champions in December, a race he won last year.
Despite those credentials, Rylees Boy may not be trainer Paul Jones’s best chance in Sunday’s 440-yard race. Jones has three of the seven runners, including the stakes winners Jess Featureme Quick and Sparky E Boy.
