DEL MAR, Calif. - Breeders’ Cup officials say they took an unconventional approach to the Breeders’ Cup prep race program this year by adding Sunday’s $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes to the list of Win and You’re In races for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita in November.
AUBURN, Wash. – Many of the Northwest’s leading breeders will be represented by starters Sunday in the $50,000 Emerald Express at Emerald Downs, none more prominently that Bar C Racing Stables of Hermiston, Ore. Bar C, the home of influential Northwest stallion Harbor the Gold, bred three of the 11 runners in the Express field, including likely co-favorites Stikine Slough and Kenai King.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When trainer Charlie LoPresti brought Successful Dan to Saratoga a couple of weeks ago, he was very much indecisive on what to do with the 7-year-old gelding coming off a poor performance in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster.
DEL MAR, Calif. – With three two-win days in the last week, Gary Stevens is leaving Southern California this weekend for a trip to New Jersey in his best form of the year.
“I don’t want to wear out my welcome,” Stevens joked on Friday morning.
Stevens, 50, came out of retirement in January and has ridden steadily in Southern California for most of this year.
When he’s not running in Grade 1 company, Hudson Steele is tough to beat. Going back to the summer of 2010, Hudson Steele has five wins and a neck loss in six starts outside of Grade 1 competition.
Sunday, Hudson Steele is scheduled to meet 10 rivals in the Grade 3, $150,000 Oceanport Stakes run at 1 1/16 miles on turf at Monmouth Park.
AUBURN, Wash. – Frank Lucarelli began the week with his customary lead in the Emerald Downs trainer standings, but the veteran conditioner has yet to win a stakes race at the meeting. He’ll have two chances Sunday when he sends out Mebossman and Mizzo’s Gold in the season’s first stakes race for 2-year-olds, the $50,000 Emerald Express at six furlongs. First post for the 10-race card is 2 p.m. Pacific.
Donald Roberson, a trainer at Delaware Park, has been ruled off the grounds of the track after a search of his barn turned up “injectable medications, syringes, and needles,” according to a ruling posted on the website of the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission.
Roberson, who has 3 wins from 24 starters at the current Delaware meet, was ejected from the track as of July 17, according to the ruling, and will be denied access to the grounds until a hearing in front of the stewards.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Declan’s Warrior and Forty Tales rallied as a team into and through the stretch of the seven-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes when crossing paths for the first time last month at Belmont Park. But while Declan’s Warrior was forced to check briefly and alter course inside the sixteenth pole, Forty Tales had a clear run to the wire, making the most of his opportunity to win the Grade 2 dash under jockey Joel Rosario.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Minakshi has run competitively in three U.S. starts for trainer Michael Matz.
Her breakthrough win could come Sunday at Monmouth Park in the Grade 3, $150,000 Matchmaker Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf.
Entering the weekend, the leadership in the 3-year-old division is a three-way battle among classic winners Orb, Oxbow, and Palace Malice.
On Sunday, Verrazano would like to crash that party when he faces Preakness winner Oxbow and five others in the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational Stakes at Monmouth Park.
The early leader of the 3-year-old division, Verrazano – winner of the Grade 1 Wood Memorial and Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby – didn’t handle the sloppy conditions at Churchill Downs nor have the best of trips when finishing fourth in the Kentucky Derby.
