The Grade 3 Longacres Mile, $65,000 Emerald Downs Derby, and $75,000 Gottstein Futurity are among the highlights of the 2013 stakes schedule at Emerald Downs. The Auburn, Wash., racetrack has scheduled 28 Thoroughbred stakes worth a total of about $1.5 million for the meet, which runs from April 19 to Sept. 29.
Most of the stakes will be run on a Sunday, including the $200,000 Longacres Mile, which was won last year by Taylor Said and Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Mario Gutierrez.
Fancy meeting you here.
Dry Summer and the Doug O’Neill-trained Greeley Awesome, who once raced against each other at Del Mar, meet Saturday in New Mexico for the $120,000 Mine That Bird Derby. The Sunland Park feature formerly known as the Borderland Derby has been renamed for the 2009 winner of the Kentucky Derby. The Mine That Bird Derby also serves as a springboard to the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby on March 24.
NEW ORLEANS – Everyone knows Chad Brown is sending a horse to New Orleans this week, with Normandy Invasion probably favored to win the Risen Star Stakes here Saturday. Much less widely known is that Brown has sent two horses to New Orleans.
Hyper was one of 11 horses entered in the Grade 3, $150,000 Fair Grounds Handicap. Hyper will be Brown’s second starter at Fair Grounds. The first was Casino Host, who won the Mervin Muniz Handicap last March.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – All About Allie will have to fight off a couple of sharp mares Saturday, when she attempts to win the $60,000 Downthedustyroad at Oaklawn Park for the third consecutive year. She will be moving from open company back into the Arkansas-bred ranks for the six-furlong race for fillies and mares and faces chief rivals Bikini Bella and Hatter Nu Nu.
NEW ORLEANS – When a trainer talks about not being able to keep a horse on the ground, what’s meant is that the horse is thriving physically, is on edge, and needs to be allowed to run fast in a race. The phrase is not meant literally – most of the time.
When Mark Valeski blazed through a 59-second five-furlong workout under Rosie Napravnik here Feb. 1, he actually could not be kept on the ground.
NEW ORLEANS – A niggling problem with talking about the Risen Star Stakes as a Kentucky Derby prep is the race’s minimal historic impact on the Derby. Nine of the last 15 Risen Star winners made it to the Derby. Their average finishing position was 11th. Among that set, only Mucho Macho Man cracked the Derby trifecta, coming in third in 2011.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine has announced Thoroughbred racing dates going from April 20 to Dec. 15 for this year, pending Ontario Racing Commission approval.
Racing for the 133-day meet is scheduled for 1 p.m. every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and these holiday Mondays: May 20, July 1, Aug. 5, Sept. 2, and Oct. 14.
Wednesday night cards, with a 6:45 p.m. post time, begin June 5. There will be no Wednesday racing following a long weekend. Thursday racing has been dropped for this year.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Eblouissante, an unbeaten half-sister to the 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, is nearing her first workout since mid-January.
Trainer John Shirreffs said on Thursday that Eblouissante will work “in the next couple of days.”
“She’s been galloping on the main track,” he said.
A potential stakes debut in the $300,000 Santa Margarita Stakes over 1 1/8 miles on March 16 is contingent on how Eblouissante works.
“We won’t know for sure until she breezes and we see where we are,” Shirreffs said.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Demonic, the winner of a seven-furlong maiden race for 3-year-olds in his debut on Jan. 13, had a workout delayed this week because of a “minor issue,” trainer John Sadler said.
Sadler and owners Lee and Susan Searing are hoping to start Demonic in the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes over 1 1/16 miles on March 9 if the colt can resume full training.
[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]
