HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The Florida Derby has come and gone, and the 2012-13 Gulfstream meeting is in the home stretch, but that doesn’t mean the good racing is over by any stretch of the imagination.
Wednesday’s card, one of just three left in the meet, features a $70,000 optional claimer that brings together Grade 3 winner Heavenly Landing and the multiple graded stakes-placed Julie’s Love going a mile on the turf.
A day after he came within a neck of winning the $1 million Louisiana Derby with Mylute, trainer Tom Amoss won four races on Sunday’s closing-day card at Fair Grounds to tie Steve Asmussen for the 2012-13 training title.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The Big Apple’s final harbingers of spring arrive this week when the Mets and Yankees begin their seasons and turf racing returns to Aqueduct on Wednesday.
The three scheduled grass races, all at 1 1/16 miles and carded as the fifth, seventh, and ninth races, are part of a pick six with a carryover of $34,136 courtesy of upset victories by Christiesborntorun ($88.50) and Trixie Star ($154) on Saturday.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Saturday’s $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct may be Normandy Invasion’s last chance to make the Kentucky Derby, but it could be the first serious opportunity for his trainer, Chad Brown, to make it to America’s most prestigious horse race.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – It was more then 32 years ago that a young woman sent out a horse named Kil’s Wulcki Spot at Detroit Race Course to win her first race as a trainer.
Having tried unsuccessfully to gain admission to veterinary school, Kathleen O’Connell gravitated to the backstretch, where she began walking hots and rubbing horses before striking out on her own. Last Friday, she posted her 1,500th career training win when she sent out This One’s For Mel to capture a mile turf race at Tampa Bay Downs.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The new racing week at Santa Anita will begin on Thursday with a pick six carryover of $88,542. The carryover was confirmed after Boller Bomb ($32) and Warren’s Goldie ($13.40) won the sixth and seventh races on Sunday.
Thursday’s pick six covers the third through eighth race on a program that begins at 1 p.m. Pacific. The Thursday program is the first day of a four-race racing week that includes Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby program.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Liaison, who was sixth in the Kentucky Derby last year, won his first start since August in Sunday’s $71,500 Santana Mile at Santa Anita.
Ridden by Martin Garcia, Liaison ($9) closed from third in a field of five and held off a sustained threat from 6-5 favorite Midnight Transfer to win by a half-length. Liaison ran a mile on the main track in 1:36.36.
“He showed some fight,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “This is a good start. I think he’ll be a good handicap horse.”
ARCADIA, Calif. - Power Broker, unraced since a fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in November, worked a half-mile in 47.40 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday, his final major workout before a start in Saturday’s $750,000 Santa Anita Derby.
“I liked what I saw,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “He didn’t get tired.”
Owned by Gary and Mary West, Power Broker has 1 win in 5 starts and earnings of $242,600. A colt by Pulpit, Power Broker’s lone victory came in the Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes over 1 1/16 miles here last September.
Trainer John Shirreffs won Saturday’s Echo Eddie Stakes for California-bred 3-year-olds over 6 1/2 furlongs with Omega Star, who will remain in California and start in the $300,000 Snow Chief Stakes for California-breds over 1 1/8 miles on April 27.
“That’s the one we’ll aim for,” Shirreffs said. “So far he’s won going short, but he looks like a horse that can go a distance.”
