Beholder, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012, worked seven furlongs in 1:26.60 on Friday in preparation for the $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks next Saturday.
Trained by Richard Mandella, Beholder won the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes over a mile March 2. On Friday, Beholder worked in company with Sarach, a two-time winner at this meeting who was fifth in the China Doll Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on turf March 9.
The Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks over 1 1/16 miles will have a small field.
Paynter, the 4-year-old colt who won the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational last August and then survived a severe bout with laminitis last summer and fall, is nearing a comeback race.
On Friday, Paynter worked a half-mile in 47.60 seconds, his fifth workout since resuming serious training earlier this year.
“He looked pretty good,” Baffert said. “He’s getting pretty close.”
Baffert has not picked a race for Paynter’s first start of 2013 but said it would not be at Santa Anita. The Santa Anita winter-spring meeting ends April 21.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Ready for another derby? One week after Gulfstream Park presents its cornerstone event, the $1 million Florida Derby, crosstown rival Calder Racecourse counters with a derby of its own, the $250,000 Calder Derby, which highlights Saturday’s opening-day program at the north Miami oval.
The 1 1/8-mile Calder Derby, which was switched from turf to dirt this season, attracted 29 nominations led by trainer Eddie Plesa Jr.’s duo of Itsmyluckyday and Speak Logistics, neither of whom will run.
Trainer Tom Amoss and jockey Rosie Napravnik will try to take an appropriate final bow to a successful Fair Grounds meet when they team with the speedy Southern Dude in the $60,000 Bayou St. John, a turf-sprint stakes for older Louisiana-breds that highlights a 12-race card on closing day, Sunday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – In the three weeks since Goldencents finished fourth in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita on March 9, trainer Doug O’Neill has focused on teaching the two-time stakes winner to reserve his speed.
NEW ORLEANS – Divide and conquer. That’s the strategy outlined this week by trainer Larry Jones with his talented older females Believe You Can and Joyful Victory, who Jones hopes can remain apart and knock off multiple graded stakes before heading to the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic this fall at Santa Anita.
Northlands Park has scheduled 37 stakes races worth $2.1 million for the 80-day meet that begins May 3 and concludes Oct. 14.
The highlight of the year is the Grade 3, $200,000 Canadian Derby. The premier race for 3-year-olds will be contested over a grueling 1 3/8 miles on Aug. 17. The Canadian Derby is the only graded race at the meet. It will be supported by the $75,000 City of Edmonton Distaff for fillies and mares and the $50,000 Westerner for 3-year-olds and up.
ARCADIA, Calif. – It should be relatively easy to find the winner of a five-horse race, but that is not the case in the $70,000 Santana Mile on Sunday at Santa Anita.
A small field entered the main-track stakes, and for every reason to like each of the five starters there is another reason to be skeptical.
One percent of the purse subsidies flowing to horsemen at New York’s tracks from casinos attached to them will be redirected to the New York State Gaming Commission for equine health-related initiatives under a budget approved Thursday night by state lawmakers.
Priceless Feature has had some close calls in Grade 1 races for Quarter Horses, and on Saturday night he will be a leading contender to nail down his first win at that level in the $100,000 Leo at Remington Park. He is part of a 10-horse field in the 400-yard for 3-year-olds and up that figures to produce starters for the Grade 1, $250,000 Remington Park Invitational Championship on June 1.
