DEL MAR, Calif. – Jockey Gary Stevens is unbeaten in two starts on the 2-year-old Alpine Luck this summer. The style the Hall of Famer has used to accomplish the mini-winning streak makes trainer Mike Harrington chuckle.
“The first time he rode him, I said, ‘Ride him like he’s a route horse,’ ” Harrington recalled telling Stevens. “He went to the front and drew off.”
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Trainer Milton Palma is hoping for a big effort from Ruby’s Victory in the $50,000 B.C. Cup Stellar’s Jay at Hastings on Monday. The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds is one of six stakes that will make up most of the B.C. Day holiday card.
AUBURN, Wash. – Chu and You, an eye-catching winner of her only start, profiles as the horse to beat Sunday in the $50,000 Angie C Stakes at Emerald Downs. The meeting’s first stakes race for 2-year-old fillies attracted seven entrants, and Chu and You is likely to start as a short-priced favorite.
The six-furlong Angie C is the ninth race on a 10-race card that begins at 2 p.m. Pacific.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. – Positive Response and Grand Berry, a pair of multiple stakes winners, will try to add to their laurels Sunday in the $50,000-added Joseph Grace Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on the turf at the Sonoma County Fair.
Grand Berry, from the barn of Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella, has yet to hit the board in his six starts since arriving to the United States from Argentina late last year, but his best effort came at Golden Gate Fields when he lost a photo for third in the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile. He won Group 1 and Group 2 stakes in his native Argentina.
FORT ERIE, Ontario – Fort Erie was to have a 50-day race meet in 2013, with racing scheduled for Sundays and Tuesdays, and Mondays to be added starting June 17. But a shortage of horses prompted Fort Erie to cancel Monday racing for July and it has received permission from the Ontario Racing Commission to cancel Monday cards for the rest of the meet, which has been extended from Oct. 8 to Oct. 15.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Back in April, one would have been hard-pressed to predict that Acting Naughty would be entering the first weekend in August with a chance of becoming the first horse to win three stakes at the Woodbine meeting.
But, that is exactly where Acting Naughty stands heading into Sunday’s $100,000 Etobicoke, a six-furlong overnight stakes for fillies and mares which is new on this year’s schedule.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Sweet Emma Rose, a globe-trotting filly, takes on the boys Sunday in the $60,000 Tyro Stakes for 2-year-olds on the turf at Monmouth Park.
The five-furlong Tyro is the prep for the meet’s top juvenile event on Sept. 1: the Grade 3 Sapling Stakes at six furlongs on the main track.
The Tyro, a longtime dirt fixture at Monmouth, has been run on grass in recent years to encourage participation and lure a wider-ranging field.
No one in the Tyro has been farther afield than Sweet Emma Rose.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Losses by four consecutive favorites from the third through sixth races on Thursday has led to a pick six carryover of $101,569 for Friday’s program at Del Mar.
The pick-six carryover was announced after Thursday’s sixth race, with two races remaining.
Friday’s pick six races are the third through eighth on a program that begins at 4 p.m., Pacific. The first pick six race is due off at 5 p.m., Pacific.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Chad Brown reported that Normandy Invasion resumed galloping here last week and if all goes well could have an easy breeze within the next week.
Normandy Invasion, who has not started since his fourth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, was sidelined by a foot abscess that will force him to miss his major summer goal, the Grade 1 Travers, on Aug. 24.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Vyjack, the multiple graded stakes winning 3-year-old who fizzled in the Triple Crown series, has been diagnosed with a bad case of gastric ulcers, according to his owner, David Wilkenfeld, and will likely be out until next year.
