SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Having run in the Firecracker Handicap, and with the re-emergence of stablemate Turallure, Wise Dan’s fall campaign may be altered from last year, trainer Charlie LoPresti said Thursday.
Last year, after winning the Grade 2 Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga – the same race he runs in Saturday – Wise Dan ran in the Woodbine Mile and the Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland before the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Comma to the Top, a three-time stakes winner this year, has been sidelined with a sore foot that will prevent him from starting in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita in November, trainer Peter Miller said.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill reversed a poor start to the Del Mar meeting with three wins on Wednesday’s eight-race program. Two of the wins were with 2-year-old fillies who could start in lucrative stakes in the final days of the meeting.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Summer of Fun has run too well to still be seeking her first stakes victory midway through her 3-year-old campaign, a situation trainer George Weaver hopes to rectify when he sends his multiple graded stakes-placed filly out against a talented and well-matched lineup in Saturday’s $100,000 Auntie Mame Stakes at Saratoga.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When he ran in the Fourstardave Handicap last year, Wise Dan was coming off a loss, had not raced on turf in 10 months, and at 119 pounds was in receipt of a pound from the 2010 Fourstardave winner, Get Stormy.
Buff Bradley said he wasn’t feeling any pressure about the Gardenia Stakes on Saturday at Ellis Park until he started finding out how many friends and supporters will be there to watch Groupie Doll in her long-awaited return to action.
“There’s going to be all kinds of people there,” said Bradley, who trains and co-owns Groupie Doll, the 2012 female sprint champion. “This mare has a whole lot of fans, people I didn’t even know about. It’s pretty humbling. I just hope she can go out there and make them glad they came to see her.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This might be their one opportunity to beat her. Of course, Groupie Doll deserves to be a heavy favorite Saturday in the Grade 3 Gardenia Stakes at Ellis Park in western Kentucky, but the fact that the champion mare has not raced in more than eight months and is using the race as a foundation for future events would seem to provide a ray of hope for her opposition.
“If there’s a time to take her on, it’d be in her first race back from a layoff like this,” said Mike Maker, who will send out Awesome Flower for Ken and Sarah Ramsey as perhaps the top upset threat.
Miss Addison and Ron Faucheux might be invading from Louisiana for the $100,000 Ta Wee on Saturday, but neither horse nor trainer is a stranger to Gulfstream Park. Miss Addison made two starts at the track in 2012, while Faucheux had seven starters at Gulfstream in 2011.
EAST BOSTON, Mass.– When he last raced on July 20 in the Rise Jim Stakes at Suffolk Downs, odds-on favorite Victor Laszlo engaged Silk Spinner on the far turn and they dueled down the lane before Silk Spinner reached the wire first by a half-length going six furlongs. On Saturday, Victor Laszlo tries to turn the tables on Silk Spinner when they tangle again in the Last Dance, another $50,000 stakes for Massachusetts-breds.
ALTOONA, Iowa – The undefeated Smack Smack, the late-rallying winner of the $75,000 Prairie Gold Juvenile on July 20, will be heavily favored in Saturday’s $60,000 Prairie Meadows Juvenile Mile as the ballyhooed Ride On Curlin will remain in Louisville, Ky.
Ride On Curlin, who broke Ellis Park’s 5 1/2-furlong track record and registered a 91 Beyer Speed Figure in his July 13 maiden win, will be kept under wraps by trainer Billy Gowan.
“We’re going to wait for the Sept. 7 Iroquois at Churchill,” Gowan said. “We want to qualify for the Breeders’ Cup.”
