Trainer Chad Brown is hopeful that his two-time graded-stakes-placed filly Wave Theory can get back on the winning track in Saturday’s $100,000 My Princess Jess overnight stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles on turf.
Grade 1 winner Data Link, most recently fourth as the favorite in the Grade 3 Poker at Belmont on July 4, will be sidelined indefinitely due to an ankle injury, trainer Shug McGaughey said Thursday.
McGaughey was hoping to run Data Link, the winner of the Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile in 2012, in the Grade 2 Fourstardave Handicap here next month.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Michael Dilger, the pupil, will take on his former boss, Todd Pletcher, the teacher, when he sends out his undefeated New York-bred 2-year-old Wired Bryan in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Sanford Stakes.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Swaps Stakes winner Chief Havoc will start in the $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga on July 27, a possible prep for the $1 million Travers Stakes there on Aug. 24.
Trainer Peter Miller said the Jim Dandy will determine whether Chief Havoc handles the journey to Saratoga. If Chief Havoc does not ship or run well, the Pacific Classic could be an option.
AUBURN, Wash. – Taylors Deal, a stakes winner in Arizona and British Columbia in 2012, will return from a long layoff to make his Emerald Downs debut in Saturday’s seventh race, one of three optional-claiming races on a 10-race card that begins at 2 p.m. Pacific.
Wicked Courage will be looking to win his ninth straight race Saturday in the Grade 1, $1,055,000 Rainbow Quarter Horse Derby at Ruidoso Downs, and he could not have a better jockey for the task. Cody Jensen knows win streaks. He was the regular rider of Snowbound Superstar, the Quarter Horse who won 15 consecutive races between 2006 through 2009.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – My Happy Face has three wins and three seconds in her career. Each loss has come to a filly trained by Todd Pletcher.
When My Happy Face returns to Grade 1 competition in the $300,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga on Saturday, there will be not one, but two Pletcher-trained fillies standing in her way.
The Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association intends to withdraw its consent for Calder Race Course to export its own signal to out-of-state sites if the two sides do not agree on a purse contract by July 25, the executive director of the FHBPA said Thursday.
ALTOONA, Iowa – Saturday’s co-featured $75,000 Prairie Meadows Gold Juvenile and $75,000 Prairie Meadows Gold Lassie, both contested at 5 1/2 furlongs, offer locally based 2-year-olds the opportunity to test their class versus quality ship-in talent from around the Midwest.
The Juvenile field of six is headed by the Wesley Ward-trained Big Blue Talent, a 2 1/4-length winner of a Churchill Downs maiden race June 28. Jockey Israel Ocampo will handle the assignment.
