SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Jockey Giovanni Franco learned he was picking up the mount on Bet Seattle in Monday’s $50,000 Honor the Hero Stakes at Canterbury Park at 9 a.m. the day of the race. After a bold inside move at the top of the lane through a hole left open by a tiring Stig’s Deputy, he found himself standing in the winner’s circle.
“My agent called me this morning and told me I had the ride, so I got instructions and rode the race,” Franco said.
Paco Lopez scored a stakes double on Monday as Monmouth Park closed out the Memorial Day weekend on the Jersey Shore.
Lopez was aboard Silverette, a confident winner of the $61,800 Red Cross for filly and mare sprinters. He followed up with a 10-1 upset on Rusty Slipper in the $63,600 Little Silver for 3-year-old fillies on the turf. It was the first stakes win for both fillies.
Silverette, a gray 4-year-old trained by Dale Romans, was well in hand in the deep stretch.
“She had plenty left to hold everyone off,” Lopez said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After Beat the Blues broke sharpest of all in a field of five filly-mare sprinters Monday in the Grade 3 Winning Colors Stakes at Churchill Downs, jockey Miguel Mena held his position as long as he could – which was all the way to the wire.
In the last of six furlongs, Beat the Blues held off a steady surge from odds-on favorite Judy the Beauty to take the 10th running of the $108,000 Winning Colors by three-quarters of a length.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Rebounding from a fifth-place finish in the Kentucky Oaks, Midnight Lucky turned in a dominating performance to win Monday’s 83rd running of the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes by better than six lengths over Close Hatches, who was exiting the Kentucky Oaks as well.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Comma to the Top lost a fellow pacesetter for Monday’s $100,250 Los Angeles Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park when Fast Bullet was scratched the morning of the race because of illness.
Comma to the Top lost the rest of his competition in the Grade 3 Los Angeles Handicap shortly after the start.
Ridden by Edwin Maldonado, Comma to the Top took the lead a few strides into the six-furlong race and never was troubled, winning the ninth stakes of his career by 1 1/4 lengths.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Cross Traffic had fended off the early pace challenge of Handsome Mike and then turned back a stretch bid from Mark Valeski. With a furlong to go in Monday’s 120th Metropolitan Handicap, it looked as though Cross Traffic was going to avenge his tough head loss in the Grade 3 Westchester Handicap last month.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The primary purpose for bringing Tiz Miz Sue back to the races as a 6-year-old was to try to and get her a Grade 1 victory.
Mission accomplished.
Under a confident Joe Rocco Jr., Tiz Miz Sue engaged Authenticity outside the eighth pole then outfinished that rival to the wire to win Monday’s Grade 1, $400,000 Ogden Phipps Handicap by a half-length at Belmont Park.
Uncle T Seven defeated Sundae on Sunday and Dan’s Gold in the $50,000 George Barker Memorial on Monday at Finger Lakes. Ridden by Wilfredo Rohena in the six-furlong race for New York-bred 3-year-olds and up, Uncle T Seven rallied from sixth place to edge Sundae on Sunday by a half-length, with Dan’s Gold another half-length back in third.
The favorite, Uncle T Seven paid $6.40 to win. A 7-year-old Freud gelding owned and trained by David Jacobson, Uncle T Seven covered the six furlongs in 1:11.11.
ELMONT, N.Y. - A matchup between Saginaw and the Grade 1 winner Willy Beamin in the $100,000 Affirmed Success Handicap highlights Saturday's New York Showcase Day program.
The New York Showcase comprises 10 races restricted to New York-breds, including seven stakes worth $850,000. Unlike the Showcase program held in the fall, however, several of these races came up light in numbers, with three six-horse fields and one seven-horse field.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Just as pace made the race in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, so it did in Monday’s $200,000 Sands Point, when Discreet Marq established an easy tempo and held off Wave Theory to win the Grade 2 turf race for 3-year-old fillies.
Making her first start in four months since leading to the final strides of the Sweetest Chant for her former trainer Jane Cibelli, Discreet Marq grabbed the lead with Jose Lezcano aboard and loped along through early fractions of 25.57 and 49.64 seconds, with Kitten’s Queen applying token pressure in the 1 1/16-mile race.
