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.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If setting a track record is the standard for being back in peak form, then Groupie Doll is up to par, having done so in winning the Presque Isle Downs Masters on Monday night in Pennsylvania.
Groupie Doll returned Tuesday to Churchill Downs “in great shape,” according to trainer Buff Bradley, and attention now shifts to the next two races for the 2012 filly-mare sprint champion, those being the Oct. 5 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland and the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita.
The ninth and final race at Suffolk Downs was canceled Tuesday due to heavy equipment remaining on the main track following a fatal breakdown in the previous race.
The equipment was needed to recover the body of National Hero, an 11-year-old son of El Prado and New England’s champion turf male in 2010-11, who lost jockey Jordano Tunon leaving the gate and broke through the outside rail on the turf course nearing the stretch and fell into the ditch that separates the turf course from the main track.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Paul Attard took a chance by scratching Awesome Overture from Sunday’s $250,000 Presque Isle Mile, with the hope that Friday’s prep for the Durham Cup Stakes would fill. He got his wish when the 1 1/16-mile allowance went with five.
Attard has some familiarity with the Presque Isle Mile, because of the success that his father, Sid, has had in the race. Sid won it last year with Eternal Rule and sent out Stunning Stag to finish third in 2010 and 2011.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trade Storm, invading from England for Sunday’s Woodbine Mile, was settling in here Wednesday morning after arriving in Toronto about 10:30 the previous evening on a flight from Amsterdam.
Trained by David Simcock, the 5-year-old Trade Storm has faced some of Europe’s premier milers this year and adds spice to a Woodbine Mile field headed by defending champion Wise Dan.
