HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Always in a Tiz, who finished fifth as the second choice in the Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest at Oaklawn this past Monday, was found to have a lung infection following the race, according to his connections. The horse came into the Southwest off a fast-closing third in last month’s $150,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn.
“He scoped with a lung infection,” said Anthony Bonomo Jr., general manager for MeB Racing Stables and Brooklyn Boyz Stables.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Livi Makenzie ran in some of the more important sprints for 3-year-old fillies last year, but now it’s time to get her two-turn game on. Trainer Ron Moquett will be stretching Livi Makenzie back out in distance Friday, for the eighth race at Oaklawn.
Srumdiddlyumptious and Singlet, who finished a half-length apart when one-two in Penn National’s Femme Fatale Stakes last summer, knock heads again as they head a field of five fillies and mares in Friday’s $75,000 Ruby Rubles Stakes at Aqueduct.
Srumdiddlyumptious makes her first start since the Mandy’s Gold Stakes at Saratoga last Aug. 8, when she set the early pace and faded to fourth behind returning champion My Miss Aurelia at 6 1/2 furlongs.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Anybody putting in a Rainbow 6 ticket on Friday at Gulfstream Park – and that seems to be just about everybody these days – may want to try narrowing their selections to just two horses, Silent Fright and Sonja’s Angel, in the afternoon’s featured ninth event, a first-level optional $25,000 claiming race for older fillies and mares at five and a half furlongs.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Clubhouse Ride, second in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes on Feb. 3, will not run in Saturday’s $200,000 San Carlos Stakes for sprinters at Santa Anita, trainer Craig Lewis said Wednesday.
Lewis hopes to run Clubhouse Ride in the $750,000 Santa Anita Handicap over 1 1/4 miles on March 2, pending the publication of the weights this weekend.
“I’m leaning toward the Big Cap,” Lewis said. “I discussed with the owner, and we decided we’d rather go there. The money is enticing.”
Betfair Hollywood Park has eliminated two $100,000 turf stakes for the upcoming spring-summer meeting, the Inglewood and Beverly Hills handicaps.
The meeting runs from April 25 through July 14 and has 47 stakes, two fewer than during the 2012 meeting. The richest races of the meeting will be the $500,000 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 6 and the $350,000 American Oaks for 3-year-old fillies on turf July 13.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – Fonner Park is scheduled to begin its traditional 31-day session Friday, weather permitting. The rest of the Nebraska racing calendar will have a much different look this year.
The opening-day card is being threatened by a strong winter storm forecast to move into the area Wednesday afternoon that could dump more than a foot of snow on Grand Island through Thursday evening.
With a clear year-end goal of defending his title in the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos in December, Rylees Boy will be raced sparingly in coming months.
Trainer Paul Jones made those plans earlier this week after Rylees Boy won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Sunday, a race that offered an automatic berth for the winner to the Champion of Champions.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - He’s Had Enough arrived safely at Gulfstream Park from California on Tuesday and got his first feel for the local surroundings going to the racetrack to train Wednesday morning.
He’s Had Enough was accompanied both on the trip and out on the track by trainer Doug O’Neill’s stable pony, the former champion Lava Man, who was returning to Gulfstream for the first time since 2005, when he finished a well-beaten seventh in the $1 million Sunshine Millions Classic.
ARCADIA, Calif. – After starting in stakes in 13 of his last 14 starts, an allowance race at Santa Anita on Friday may be what the veteran gelding Tres Borrachos needs to end a lengthy losing streak and reach a career milestone.
Tres Borrachos has not won in 13 starts, since the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar in July 2011. If he runs first or second in Friday’s second race at Santa Anita, he will surpass $1 million in career earnings.
“He deserves it,” trainer Marty Jones said.
