Owner William Stiritz’s trainer, Scott Becker, is based at Fairmount Park, with assistant trainer John Pool running Stiritz’s active string in Chicago. It was Becker who pointed out last fall at Hawthorne the availability of Hogy for an $80,000 claiming price.
“I’ve watched the horse, and I’ve always kind of liked the horse,” Becker said Monday. “I saw he was in for a tag, and [Stiritz] said, ‘Go for it.’ He really didn’t blink an eye.”
ELMONT, N.Y. - Joha, a Grade 1-winning 2-year-old of 2012, has been transferred from Mike Maker to trainer Tom Albertrani. On Monday, he had his first published work of the year, going three furlongs in 38.50 seconds over the main track at Belmont Park.
Joha won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity when he was with Maker, one of 3 wins from 8 starts last year. He is owned by the Bluegrass Equine Bloodstock.
Albertrani said he is attempting to get Joha to the Grade 3, $150,000 Hill Prince, a one-mile race on turf on June 15.
The 3-year-old colt General Election was, of course, raised in fields of grass and has trod over turf innumerable times during his time on Earth. But it was not until he stepped onto the Arlington grass course for the Arlington Classic on Saturday that General Election had been out on an actual turf course.
His trainer, Kellyn Gorder, using General Election’s all-weather form and his pedigree as a guide, thought his horse would like the experience, and he was right. With a rail-hugging ride from Joe Rocco Jr., General Election won his first graded stakes in his eighth start.
ELMONT, N.Y. - If trainer Bill Mott needed a sign to know how Royal Delta was doing as he prepares her for the second half of the year, he got it on Monday when the two-time champion put in a most impressive five-furlong workout over Belmont’s main track.
Royal Delta, under regular exercise rider Rodolphe Brissett, worked five furlongs in 58.96 seconds, with a final quarter in 22.47. She galloped out six furlongs in 1:11.45.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Between Jan. 1 and May 1, trainer Wayne Catalano sent out 145 starters. Most of those runners came at Fair Grounds, Gulfstream, and Keeneland, and 18 of them won, a modest 12 percent strike rate.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Though the emphasis of Monday’s workouts at Belmont Park was on those pointing to the Belmont Stakes, trainer Todd Pletcher had two other noteworthy 3-year-olds put in drills on the day.
Verrazano, who suffered his first loss when he was 14th in the Kentucky Derby, worked four furlongs in 47.82 seconds over the Belmont training track. Verrazano, winner of the Grade 1 Wood Memorial, is pointing to the Grade 3, $150,000 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park on June 16.
On the Key begins what his connections hope is a march to the Grade 3, $200,000 Canadian Derby on Aug. 17 when he makes his Northlands Park debut in a first-level allowance race for 3-year-olds Wednesday. The six-furlong sprint drew 10 horses, and if On the Key can stay within striking distance of the early leaders he should be able to mow them down in the stretch.
Post time for the first mid-week card of the year is 6 p.m. Mountain.
Juan Vazquez was the leading trainer at Delaware Park in 2010 and 2011, then finished second behind runaway leader Jamie Ness last year. Although he has about 60 horses on the grounds, Vazquez didn’t send out a starter in the first four days of the meet.
Vazquez could begin to make some noise on Wednesday when he saddles the much-improved Dreaming of Jazz as a contender in the $50,000 Bud Delp Memorial Stakes for 3-year-olds going a mile and 70 yards on the main track.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher’s prospective list of Belmont Stakes starters went from six to five Monday, but he certainly couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the way at least two of them worked on a glorious spring morning at Belmont Park.
Palace Malice put in a strong five-furlong workout in 1:00.24 with a sensational gallop-out that not only upgraded his Belmont chances but ended the Belmont plans of Micromanage, who couldn’t keep up with Palace Malice and was withdrawn from consideration by owner Mike Repole.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Tom Wenzel dominated the Seattle Handicap for 3-year-old fillies Sunday at Emerald Downs, saddling the first three finishers, all homebreds for Jerre Paxton’s Northwest Farms, and taking home $45,000 of the $50,000 purse.
Stopshoppingdebbie, by Curlin from the stakes-winning mare Taste the Passion, got a patient ride from Rocco Bowen to prevail by 1 1/2 lengths over the previously undefeated Goin to the Window, with Blueberry Smoothie another 2 1/2 lengths back in third. The winner covered the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:14.41 to equal the stakes record.
