ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Ralph Biamonte will try to win the $125,000 Bold Ruckus Stakes for the third year in a row Saturday at Woodbine, when he runs Click and Canuspellpatience in the six-furlong turf sprint for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds.
Click blew away maidens at first asking last June 21. Nine days later, he was softened up in a wicked speed duel and wound up fifth in the ultra-tough Clarendon Stakes, which was won by the future divisional champion Uncaptured.
Unreachable Star, under Marlon St. Julien, made an impressive move in the stretch and ran down his 10 Indiana-sired opponents to win the $89,250 William Henry Harrison at Indiana Downs Wednesday evening. In the other stakes on the card, Ms. Smitty came from just off the pace to take the $88,000 Shelby County against Indiana-sired fillies and mares.
Lasting Bubbles will return to Lone Star Park’s main track, where she is 2 for 2, in Friday night’s fourth race. The second-level allowance race for fillies and mares will be run at six furlongs. The race has a field of six, including 13-time winner Miss Oops.
Lasting Bubbles made a rare turf appearance last month at Lone Star in the $50,000 Lane’s End Stallion Scholarship Stakes, a 7 1/2-furlong race in which she missed by a nose. She found herself farther off the pace than usual after she did not break sharply.
Retama Park near San Antonio opens a 20-date meet for Quarter Horses on Friday night, its first season under Pinnacle Entertainment, the Las Vegas-based company that completed its acquisition of a majority interest in the track on Jan. 30.
In a $22.8 million deal, Pinnacle, which owns River Downs in Ohio and seven casinos in Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana, acquired a 75.5 percent stake in Retama.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Midnight Lucky, the winner of the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park on May 27, will run in the $300,000 Prioress Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over six furlongs at Saratoga on July 27, trainer Bob Baffert said.
Midnight Lucky has won 3 of 4 starts and $362,100. She won the Sunland Park Oaks in her stakes debut in March, but was fifth in the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs on May 3.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Becky Lou and Lucky Primo could provide trainers Matt Chew and Joshua Litt with milestone wins at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday – their first graded stakes wins.
Chew, 52, recalls winning stakes on the Northern California fair circuit in the 1980s. Litt, 43, has won two stakes for California-breds in recent years.
ELMONT, N.Y. – After having scratched out of the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve due to less than firm turf, trainer Shug McGaughey said that Point of Entry would run in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Manhattan at Belmont Park regardless of course condition.
There is a forecast for rain Friday, carrying over into Saturday morning.
“Obviously, I’m a little concerned, but he’s going to run anyway,” McGaughey said Wednesday.
McGaughey said that 1 1/4 miles at Belmont is a different type of race than 1 1/8 miles at Churchill, where the Woodford Reserve was run.
AUBURN, Wash. – A young buck will meet an old pro Friday when Jade Road, undefeated through two starts, tackles venerable former Longacres Mile hero Wasserman and six others in the feature race at Emerald Downs. The one-mile feature, a $17,500 claimer for older horses, is the sixth of seven races on a program that begins at 6:45 p.m. Pacific.
Jockey Luis Quinonez hopes to begin physical therapy later this month as he continues to heal from two fractured vertebrae sustained in an April 23 training accident at Churchill Downs. Quinonez has been recovering at his home in Jones, Okla., and he anticipates a return to riding during the Remington Park meet that begins Aug. 16.
“I want to be ready for opening day at Remington,” said Quinonez, a 46-year-old who has won more than 3,280 races and compiled more than $55 million in mount earnings.
ELMONT, N.Y. - He was the original jet-setter in racing. “Wayne off the plane” was the cry when trainer D. Wayne Lukas would fly his horses across the country to knock off Grade 1 stakes. Now, he’s grounded, Lukas preferring to hit the road with, as he puts it, “my friends George and Willie.”
