DEL MAR, Calif. – Six furlongs against California-breds, or seven furlongs against open company. That was the decision trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and owner Larry Williams faced this week with Tamarando.
They decided to go big, and they went home on Wednesday with a win in the Grade 1, $301,500 Del Mar Futurity on the track’s closing day.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Private Zone, in his first start since a disappointing try in the Dubai Golden Shaheen in March, returned in top form on Wednesday at Del Mar by holding off Ain’t No Other to take the $123,400 Pirate’s Bounty Stakes for older sprinters.
Private Zone went right to the front, turned back 7-5 favorite Roman Threat after a half-mile in 45.21 seconds, then bravely staved off Ain’t No Other to win by a neck in 1:09.03 for six furlongs on Polytrack.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Expectations are starting to soar regarding Diamond Bachelor, who won his stakes debut in Wednesday's $100,000 Oak Tree Juvenile Turf at Del Mar.
After Diamond Bachelor led throughout the one-mile race for 2-year-olds, trainer Patrick Biancone ranked the colt as a personal favorite, and made a bold prediction for 2014.
"This horse can win the Derby," Biancone said. "This is one of the best horses I've trained at this age."
DEL MAR, Calif. - Gypsy Robin began the Del Mar meeting with a disappointing fourth as the 8-5 favorite in an allowance race on July 18, the second day of the season.
She won Wednesday's $94,870 California Equine Retirement Foundation Stakes, the first race on the closing day of the meeting, for her fifth career stakes win.
Taking the lead at the start, Back Forty turned back a determined challenge from Tomorrow’s Tale through much of Wednesday's $50,000 Damitrius Stakes before edging clear late for a 1 1/4-length victory in Wednesday’s six-furlong feature at Delaware Park.
Under a well-judged ride by Abel Castellano Jr., Back Forty cut out fractions of 21.80 and 44.61 seconds with Tomorrow's Tale at his outside flank, and then after dueling into the final furlong, Back Forty finally shook clear under strong urging by Castellano.
Apprentice rider Aparna Battula has two fractured vertebrae and will be out indefinitely after a spill Monday afternoon at Indiana Downs.
Battula was on Uptown Sterling for trainer Fred Jackson in the fourth race Monday when she attempted to move her mount off the rail in the six-furlong event and apparently clipped heels with another horse, causing both horse and rider to fall. Battula was taken by ambulance to Major Hospital in Shelbyville, Ind., where she was treated and released.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Maybe it’s the new Win and You’re In designations, or maybe not. Whatever the case, the 2-year-old stakes to be run Saturday night at Churchill Downs elicited the entries of some pretty nice horses.
Eight 2-year-old fillies will try to earn an all-expenses-paid ticket to the Breeders’ Cup when they clash in the Grade 2, $150,000 Pocahontas Stakes, the first of four straight stakes on the Downs After Dark card. Some 35 minutes later, a full lineup of 12 2-year-old colts and geldings will do the same in the Grade 3, $150,000 Iroquois Stakes.
AUBURN, Wash. – Davos, whose promising career was waylaid by injuries, returns from a long layoff to headline Friday’s feature race at Emerald Downs, a $10,000 claimer for older horses at six furlongs. The seven-race card begins at 6:45 p.m. Pacific.
Trainer Burton Sipp has been suspended 180 days by the Thistledown stewards after a random search of his barn by state investigators turned up several syringes and injectibles at Thistledown last Saturday.
The injectibles were vitamins, according to state steward Darrell Parker.
“Mr. Sipp stated that he was taking them to a farm on his way to Mountaineer Park,” Parker said.
Sipp has appealed the suspension and is being allowed to continue to race at Thistledown, as well as Mountaineer Park and Presque Isle Downs.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - A robust-looking Willcox Inn bucked and played as he was inspected by his handlers outside the Arlington barn of trainer Mike Stidham on Wednesday morning, a sign that he came out of his hard-fought win Saturday in the Washington Park Handicap in good order.
That is what Stidham and his crew are seeing, and Willcox Inn, who scored an overdue first victory of 2013 in the Washington Park, is being pointed to a return trip to the Grade 1 Shadwell Mile at Keeneland in October.
