ARCADIA, Calif. – By the end of last summer, Chips All In was a tired 3-year-old.
He was running well – second in a division of the Oceanside Stakes in July and third in the Grade 2 La Jolla Handicap in August – but trainer Jeff Mullins saw signs of fatigue.
“He’d been in training since they broke him,” Mullins said. “He was tailing off.”
Coyote Legend’s natural speed could give him a tactical advantage over Skip a Smile when the last two Texas-bred horses of the year meet Saturday night in the $50,000 Jersey Village at Sam Houston Race Park. A field of eight will go in the 1 1/16-mile turf race restricted to 4-year-olds and up bred in Texas.
NEW ORLEANS – Chad Brown has skipped several rungs trainers traditionally climb on their way to the top. He won with his first Breeders’ Cup starter, Maram. The first Eclipse Award finalist he trained, Stacelita, was named champion turf female of 2011. Zagora won the same award for her 2012 campaign. Just 35 and with barely four years as a head trainer, Brown has not so much climbed a career ladder as sprinted it two steps at a time.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – N.F.’s Destiny is listed at even-money on the morning line for Saturday’s $62,000 first-level allowance feature at Aqueduct. Those odds are most apropos for a horse who, in two separate accidents as a weanling, was given a 50-50 chance to survive.
But survive N.F.’s Destiny did and now the 4-year-old New York-bred gelding is thriving as he seeks his third consecutive victory when he faces open company runners for the first time. The allowance serves as Saturday’s feature after the Kings Point Stakes for New York-breds failed to fill.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Dreaming of Julia is the marquee name in Saturday’s $250,000 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream Park and the main reason the Grade 2 stakes drew a field of only five 3-year-old fillies. But the heavy favorite could have her hands full with the up and coming Live Lively, a lightly raced but extremely promising daughter of Medaglia d’Oro who will try to stretch her speed out around two turns for the first time.
The 1 1/16-mile Davona Dale serves as a prep for Gulfstream Park’s premier race for 3-year-old fillies, the Grade 2 Florida Oaks, on March 30.
Jeff Greenhill said this week that his stable star Mac the Man most likely will skip the final prep and just train into the $550,000 Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park on March 23.
Mac the Man was a dominant winner of two earlier $50,000 preps, the Turfway Prevue and 96 Rock Stakes, and probably would have been the favorite in the next one, the $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial. The Battaglia, a 1 1/16-mile Polytrack race, will be run next Saturday, March 2, at the northern Kentucky track.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Midnight Transfer has shown hints in his brief career that he can be effective as a sprinter and a miler. It would be ideal if he were a little bit of both for Saturday’s $200,000 San Carlos Stakes over seven furlongs at Santa Anita.
“I just hope he’s good at seven-eighths,” trainer Carla Gaines said.
Twice the Lady and Moon Philly, both coming off stakes wins last month while equaling or setting a career-best Beyer Speed Figure, are prime contenders in a field of eight older fillies and mares in Saturday’s $75,000 Maryland Racing Media Stakes at Laurel Park.
But the best storyline in the 1 1/8-mile race is tied to Blessed Soul, a 7-year-old mare who will be a longshot after beating just one horse in her comeback following an absence of nearly two years.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – With seven of the top 13 3-year-olds on Daily Racing Form’s Derby Watch in his barn, Todd Pletcher has a problem any other trainer not named Bob Baffert would love to have – keeping his Kentucky Derby hopefuls separated while on the quest to amass as many qualifying points as possible for the main event on May 4.
With that in mind, Pletcher has entered only one of his leading Derby prospects, Violence, in Saturday’s $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park. And in this case, one figures to be enough.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Data Link has won three of his four starts over the Gulfstream Park turf course, with the only blip on that record his third-place finish here a year ago in the Grade 3 Canadian Turf.
Data Link figures to make amends for that setback on Saturday when he goes off as the solid favorite in the $150,000 Canadian, which drew a field of 10 older horses scheduled to go a mile on the grass.
