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.
ELMONT, N.Y. – If you are judged by the company you keep, then Fast Falcon, despite having just one career victory, will be deemed as having a big chance in Sunday’s $90,000 Albert the Great Stakes at Belmont Park.
Since winning a maiden race at Pimlico a year ago, Fast Falcon has competed in six graded stakes, including a neck loss in the Grade 1 Travers to dead-heat winners Alpha and Golden Ticket. He also was beaten a neck by Teeth of the Dog in the Grade 2 Dwyer.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Saginaw, entered to run in Saturday’s $75,000 Decathlon Stakes at Monmouth Park, was expected to scratch from that race to run Sunday at Belmont in a $55,000 starter/optional-claiming race.
In theory, this may be an easier spot for the champion New York-bred older male, but it’s far from easy.
Presque Isle Downs opens for its seventh year of racing Sunday with several big changes from years past. Most obvious of all is the new racing schedule for the customary 100-day meet. Racing will be held from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday being the dark days.
