ELMONT, N.Y. – Sickness, depression, and a lack of stock drove trainer Pat Reynolds out of Thoroughbred racing for about 16 months beginning in the fall of 2010.
After minimal success upon his return, things have picked up nicely this spring for the 62-year-old Reynolds, who hopes he can return to the high level at which he was competing a few years ago.
MIAMI – Trainer Leo Azpurua Jr. will nominate his multiple-stakes-placed Bellefire to next Saturday’s Grade 2 Smile Sprint. But unless Calder management suddenly decides to lengthen the race from six to seven furlongs during the next two weeks, it’s not likely Bellefire will run.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Tom Wenzel looks to have his rivals surrounded Sunday in the $50,000 Irish Day Handicap at Emerald Downs. Only six horses were entered to compete in the meeting’s second stakes race for 3-year-old fillies, and Wenzel has the three leading contenders with Stopshoppingdebbie, Goin to the Window, and Blueberry Smoothie, who ran first, second, and third in the Seattle Handicap on May 26.
MIAMI - Trainer Kathleen O’Connell knew going in that Reporting Star was a little overmatched going up against the likes of Verrazano and Itsmyluckyday last Sunday in Monmouth Park’s Grade 3 Pegasus. But with few others options at the time, she decided to make Reporting Star part of the five-horse field and was rewarded in the end when the son of Circular Quay finished second behind the odds-on Verrazano.
Gulfstream Park’s first-ever summer racing program, to be run on Tuesday, will consist of eight races, all to be decided over the main track. The card is officially the final day of the 2012-2013 winter meet. The 2013 summer-fall session opens on July 1.
The first stakes race of the summer meet, the $100,000 Armed Forces, closed with 32 nominations including horses from the barns of trainers Todd Pletcher, Dale Romans and John Shirreffs. The Armed Forces is scheduled to be run at a mile and one-sixteenth on the turf on July 4.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – So Long George has displayed a winning touch for trainer John Charalambous.
Now, after a brief interruption in training when his barn was under quarantine, So Long George will be getting the acid test in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 King Edward Stakes at Woodbine.
So Long George, who races for Leonard Zenith’s Up Hill Stable, has started once this season, knocking out his second allowance condition in an optional $62,500 claiming race at seven furlongs of turf.
In 2012, the partnership of Jorge Carmona and brothers Jose and Gustavo de la Torre won the Ed Burke Million Futurity at Los Alamitos with One Dashing Eagle. One Dashing Eagle went on to win the All American and Golden State Million futurities, and was named the World Champion Running Quarter Horse for 2012.
In Sunday’s $1,111,000 Burke Futurity, the owners are back again – as a team and competing separately.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – With the goal of starting in the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar on July 17, stakes winners Gabriel Charles and Rosengold are expected to dominate Sunday’s $70,000 Tsunami Slew at Betfair Hollywood Park.
Each has something to prove in the Tsunami Slew, which is run at a mile on turf for 3-year-olds.
Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has been wanting to run the 3-year-old colt Outside Nashville against his own age group all year, and he finally gets his chance Sunday in the $50,000-added Livermore Valley Wines Stakes at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif.
Outside Nashville, a son of Broken Vow who sold for $115,000 at the Ocala March sale as a juvenile, ran third at Del Mar last summer in his debut before finishing last in his next start.
