Princess Phoebe and Sweet Hot Toddy, both coming off dominant victories in their first starts of the season that produced identical Beyer Speed Figures, and both from barns that have been hot in the early weeks of the 2013 Finger Lakes meet, clash in Monday’s $25,000 feature at the western New York track.
The five-furlong eighth race is a third-level allowance for New York-bred fillies and mares. The two logical favorites in a field of seven are extremely difficult to separate.
The opportunity that awaits bettors in Monday’s $53,000 feature at Parx Racing doesn’t come along very often. On average, it happens about four times a year, and has not occurred at all within the past six months.
When fans looking to cash a bet see a Tony Dutrow-trained filly like Mikey Likes It, they should be running to the windows.
Mac the Man has been deemed healthy and ready to run by trainer Jeff Greenhill and will get his chance in the $100,000 Tom Ridge at Presque Isle Downs on Monday. The Tom Ridge is for 3-year-olds going six furlongs over Presque Isle’s Tapeta surface.
Mac the Man reeled off three impressive wins over Polytrack at Turfway Park this past winter. On Dec. 8, he won the Turfway Park Prevue prep by more than eight lengths. In his next out Jan. 5, he won the $50,000 Turfway Park Preview by four lengths. His third win came Feb. 2 in the $ 50,000 96 Rocks by two lengths.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Half Strike may have won only a first-condition optional claimer at Betfair Hollywood Park on Friday, but the style of the win and the 4-year-old’s behavior in recent months have left trainer Richard Mandella optimistic that he could have a new stakes horse this summer.
“He’s definitely getting better,” Mandella said on Saturday. “He’s really turned it around.”
By Smart Strike out of Halfbridled, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2003, Half Strike won Friday’s race over 1 1/16 miles by 2 3/4 lengths under jockey Rafael Bejarano.
ALTOONA, Iowa - Favored Ginger Added ($5) hugged the rail under jockey Jake Barton and fended off her chief rival Praire Cougar to take the $70,000 Mamie Eisenhower Stakes, a six-furlong event for Iowa-bred fillies and mares, by 2 1/4 lengths.
Following a winless campaign in 2012, the resurgent 5-year-old mare, 2 for 2 on the season, has come back better than ever.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Tom Amoss confirmed Mylute as a starter for the 138th Preakness after the gray colt went through a routine gallop well before dawn Saturday over a muddy and harrowed track at Churchill Downs.
Amoss said he is satisfied with how Mylute came out of his fifth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby and that after consulting with the colt’s owners, they have agreed to run in the Preakness, which is set for next Saturday, May 18, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
Sky Blazer, preparing for Wednesday’s $90,000 Good Reward Stakes, worked five furlongs in 1:01.20 over the Belmont main track Friday.
Sky Blazer went off in 37.40 seconds for three-eighths of a mile and came home in 23.80. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.33. Sky Blazer, trained by Barclay Tagg, is coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 2 Elkhorn at Keeneland.
A field of seven was entered for the Good Reward, scheduled for 1 1/4 miles on turf, including the multiple Grade 1 winner Teaks North.
Jess Meche, the 21-year-old exercise rider who died in a training accident at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., in April, will be honored at the track on May 18. The night's fifth race will be named for Meche, and Delta and local horsemen will present a plaque to his family.
Meche was a former Quarter Horse jockey who rode in his native Louisiana and Canada before going to work as an exercise rider.
It appears as though Reload has found his niche as a sprinter.
On Thursday, Reload won a second-level allowance race by five lengths, running seven furlongs in 1:22.65 and earning a Beyer of 98.
It was Reload’s second straight win after losing eight of his first nine starts for the Phipps family and trainer Shug McGaughey. In April, he won a first-level allowance race over Keeneland’s synthetic surface by 6 3/4 lengths.
Reload’s transformation has caught McGaughey a little off-guard.
“Something’s happened; I don’t know what,” McGaughey said.
Cold Cash 123, the 2011 world champion Quarter Horse, has returned to the Southwest to lead Sunday’s Grade 2, $101,340 Oklahoma Challenge Championship at Remington Park. The 440-yard race is one of three stakes on the card, and the winners of the races will earn berths into the Challenge Championship finals at Los Alamitos in November.
