INGLEWOOD, Calif. - As early as Thursday, Victor Espinoza could become the most recent jockey to win the 3,000th race of his career.
Monday, Espinoza won his 2,999th race on the 9-1 Doyouseemecoming in the eighth race, his final mount of the day. Thursday, Espinoza rides Rosies Ready in the sixth race and Fighting Hussar in the seventh.
Get in Da House, the runner-up in last year’s Lone Star Park Handicap who skipped Monday’s renewal of the Grade 3, $300,000 race, is being freshened and will return to action in the fall, said his trainer, Wes Hawley. The horse was recently sent to a farm near his base of Louisiana Downs.
“We’re giving him the summer off,” Hawley said. “He’s turned out. He looked like he needed a mental break more than anything.”
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Several weeks ago, jockey Gary Stevens worked Marketing Mix at Keeneland as the 5-year-old mare was being prepared for the start of 2013 campaign.
“She was super-strong,” Stevens recalled of the workout.
He had the same point of view after Marketing Mix won her first start of the year in Monday’s Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park, edging Tiz Flirtatious by a nose in the race over 1 1/8 miles on turf. The victory puts Marketing Mix at the fore of the female turf division this summer.
MIAMI – Trainer David Fawkes was all smiles after watching Bahamian Squall breeze a sharp five furlongs in 1:00.65 from the gate at Calder Race Course on Sunday, a work that likely will propel the graded stakes-placed sprinter into the $75,000 Ponche Handicap as one of the favorites here June 8.
As Penn National gets set for the first $1 million night in its 40-year history, there are varying levels of interest in the six stakes, including the $500,000 Penn Mile for 3-year-olds on the grass.
Entries for Saturday’s card will be taken Wednesday, but more than 50 horses were nominated to the Penn Mile, including the winners of seven of the eight graded stakes on grass for 2-year-olds in 2012 and 3-year-olds in 2013.
Horseplayers who fancy grass races and the pick six will be delighted with Thursday’s sequence, as five of the last six races at Belmont Park are scheduled for turf, including two allowance races that share top billing.
Trainers Christophe Clement and Bill Mott will saddle contenders in both races.
In race 7, a second-level allowance at one mile with a $62,500 optional-claiming price, Clement sends out Border Song, a French import formerly trained by his brother Nicolas, who came out on the shortest end of a three-way win photo in his U.S. debut April 20 at Keeneland.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A training-track accident at Betfair Hollywood Park has delayed the comeback of 2011 champion sprinter Amazombie, who will miss the summer season and possibly his entire 7-year-old campaign.
Amazombie has not started since Nov. 3, 2012, finishing eighth as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita, a race which he won in 2011. This winter, Amazombie was plagued by quarter cracks.
Owner-trainer Bill Spawr was targeting the Grade 1 Bing Crosby in summer at Del Mar until the mishap early this month.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens revised his career total of classic wins to nine with an upset victory on Oxbow in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico on May 18. On Monday, Stevens, 50, won his first Grade 1 at Betfair Hollywood Park since 2004, as Marketing Mix prevailed by a head in a thrilling edition of the $250,500 Gamely Stakes for fillies and mares on turf.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Master Rick keeps getting better. He won his third straight race Monday in the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap when he stepped outside his comfort zone and conquered 1 1/16 miles. The race was the richest of the meet at Lone Star Park.
The improving Summer Hit ($4.60) rated nicely on an uncontested lead and scored his first graded stakes victory Monday at Golden Gate Fields with an impressive score in the $100,000, Grade 2 All American Stakes.
The Bertrando gelding, who began his career by winning a $12,500 maiden claimer, had run second in the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on the turf in his last start. He won the Silky Sullivan Stakes on the turf here last year.
