Santa Anita
Weather: Hazy
Temperature: 63 degrees
Track: Fast
ARCADIA, Calif. – Senor Buscador was the first Breeders’ Cup Classic contender to don his personal gold Breeders’ Cup towel here this week. He also was the most notable of the three Breeders’ Cup hopefuls to breeze over a fast track on a somewhat quiet Thursday morning at Santa Anita.
Wednesday, Oct. 25
Santa Anita
Weather: Cloudy
Temperature: 63°
Track: Fast
ARCADIA, Calif. – Arcangelo trained about as well as a horse could train on a regular basis this summer at Saratoga as a prelude to his impressive victory in the Grade 1 Travers. He put the finishing touches on a terrific series of works with an easy, five-furlong maintenance breeze with jockey Javier Castellano aboard 10 days prior to the race.
Frank Alvarado had a good indication he had achieved his 4,000th career win at Golden Gate Fields early Sunday afternoon while galloping back to the grandstand aboard Shout It Out.
Shout It Out won a six-furlong race for $4,000 claimers by a nose, but when the race ended Alvarado was not certain the 5-year-old mare reached the front in time.
“When I passed the wire, I said, ‘I might get it. I might not.’” He said. “When I came back, my friends from the racing office were running to the winner’s circle.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – At the height of summer racing in Southern California, jockey Kyle Frey called timeout on his 2023 season in late July.
Frey needed a break, mentally exhausted after dealing with months of self-imposed pressure to succeed. While his fellow jockeys competed for the best prize money of the year through August and early September at Del Mar, Frey stayed away, waiting until late September to return at the much quieter Los Alamitos September meeting.
Raise Cain came out of his game head win over Dr. Venkman in the Perryville Stakes on Saturday in good shape but is scheduled for a short break at trainer Ben Colebrook’s Kentucky farm before gearing back up for a 4-year-old campaign.
Raise Cain got a 96 Beyer Speed Figure for running seven furlongs in 1:23.58. Not only was the Perryville his ninth start of 2023, and not only has Raise Cain been racing steadily since his career debut 13 months ago, the colt went through a June 2-year-old auction in 2022.
With Hawthorne, the lone remaining Chicago track, conducting a harness meet, there’s not even training, much less racing in Chicago this fall. So, what are Chicago horsemen up to this October? Winning races at Keeneland.
Illinois horses won four races in the span of three race days last week led by trainer Armando Hernandez going 3 for 3: Lucky Boss won on Oct. 19, Camp Daddy on Oct. 20, and Comiskey Park on Oct. 21.
Vahva continued a breakout season for trainer Cherie DeVaux with a gritty, half-length win in the Grade 2 Raven Run last Saturday at Keeneland. Vahva will look to put a bow on this season with one more outing against 3-year-olds in the Grade 1 La Brea at Santa Anita.
“She’s good,” DeVaux said Sunday. “Right now, the goal is the La Brea.”
The Grade 1, $300,000 La Brea Stakes will be run at the same seven-furlong distance as the Raven Run on Dec. 26.
Exercise rider Alfredo Luevano had been part of the Los Alamitos backstretch community for only a few months before he died as a result of injuries sustained during morning training on Friday.
Luevano, 53, suffered a fatal injury when he was unseated while exercising a Quarter Horse filly. Details of the incident are unclear.
During the summer, Luevano was tipped by a friend that there was a demand for exercise riders at Los Alamitos. The job offer was too good to pass, according to his adult daughter, Lisbet Luevano.
California exercise rider Alfredo Luevano died Friday after sustaining injuries in a morning training accident on the Los Alamitos backstretch, the track announced Friday evening.
A native of Mexico, Luevano was 53.
Circumstances surrounding the accident were unclear late Friday afternoon. Luevano was aboard a horse trained by Mike Casselman when he was injured.
In a brief interview with Daily Racing Form on Friday, Casselman said he did not witness the incident.
Led by his Royal Ascot winning 2-year-old filly Crimson Advocate, trainer George Weaver sent out a quartet of Breeders’ Cup-bound horses for workouts over Saratoga’s Oklahoma turf course Friday morning.
Crimson Advocate, one of three horses Weaver is pointing to the Juvenile Turf Sprint, worked a half-mile in 49.92 seconds. Weaver’s other Juvenile Turf Sprint horses are No Nay Mets and Amidst Waves. No Nay Mets went a half-mile in 47.80 seconds, the fastest of 14 works at the distance, while Amidst Waves went an easy half-mile in 53.63 seconds.
