Spring Venture and Spring in the Air both had very useful efforts Monday when the Mark Casse stablemates finished one-two in the $100,000 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Championship for 3-year-old fillies in Ocala, Fla. Spring Venture finished three-quarters of a length ahead of her more heralded stablemate, finishing the 1 1/16-mile race in 1:44.80 over the SafeTrack synthetic surface.
ARCADIA, Calif. – My Miss Aurelia is looking to celebrate her fourth birthday in style. The question is where the birthday party will be held.
A champion at 2 and a near-champion at 3, My Miss Aurelia is scheduled to begin her 4-year-old campaign Saturday – exactly four years after she was born – though whether she stays at Santa Anita for the Grade 1, $300,000 Santa Margarita Stakes or travels to Oaklawn for the Grade 3, $150,000 Azeri Stakes had yet to be determined, trainer Steve Asmussen said Monday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – One of the horses trainer Ian Wilkes plans to run here at Gulfstream Park before the end of the meet is Capt. Candyman Can, a Grade 1 winner, who could make his next start in the Sir Shackelton Handicap on March 30.
Capt. Candyman Can, winner of the Grade 1 King’s Bishop at 3, is coming off a disappointing performance in Tampa Bay Downs’s Super Stakes on Feb. 23, when he made his first start in nearly 11 months.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A year ago, trainer Michael Matz was preparing And Why Not to make her 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks. On Wednesday, Matz will bring And Why Not back from a similar layoff, still hoping to win her entry-level allowance condition in the afternoon’s $54,500 main event, to be decided by a field of eight older fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on the main track.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Ian Wilkes summed up Saturday’s shocking turn of events, when Fort Larned stumbled badly leaving the gate and lost jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. immediately after the start of the start of the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap, in just eight words.
“I think we may have dodged a bullet,” Wilkes said Monday morning after reporting that all seemed well with Fort Larned in the aftermath of what could have been a disastrous situation for the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Richard Mandella continued to play a hot hand at Santa Anita on Sunday when he sent out Rumor for a mild upset win in the Grade 3, $100,250 Las Flores Stakes for female sprinters, giving the Hall of Fame trainer his seventh win out of his last nine runners.
Always quick with a quip, Mandella said his recent success was because “some of these young guys thought I was buried, but I thought I’d show them.”
Rumor, finally earning her first stakes win, added to a strike rate of nearly 33 percent this meet for Mandella.
Jockey Ramon Dominguez, injured in a spill at Aqueduct on Jan. 18, said Sunday he hopes to get clearance to begin exercising horses in the mornings in two weeks.
Dominguez, the reigning three-time Eclipse Award-winning rider, visited Aqueduct Sunday for the first time since his spill at that track, in which he suffered a fractured skull.
Dominguez told the New York Racing Association that his next appointment with his doctors is March 25, at which time he hopes to get clearance to begin getting on horses in the mornings
ARCADIA, Calif. – Hear the Ghost, who successfully stretched out around two turns when winning the Grade 2, $300,000 San Felipe Stakes on Saturday here at Santa Anita, came out of the race in good condition and is likely to make his next start in the Grade 1, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on April 6, his trainer and co-owner, Jerry Hollendorfer, said Sunday morning.
[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Ian Wilkes reported Sunday morning that Fort Larned was doing well less than 12 hours after stumbling badly and losing his rider leaving the starting gate in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap.
“He’s walking good this morning,” said Wilkes shortly before dawn Sunday at Palm Meadows. “The cuts he sustained when stumbling are not that bad, just superficial. We’ll know more in a couple of days.”
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - The Sunday card at Fonner Park was called off in midmorning as a winter storm moved into the area.
Saturday's card started off with temperatures in the 60's and a fast track. By late in the card the temperature had dropped to 38 with rain downgrading the track to muddy. Freezing temperatures overnight and heavy snow Sunday morning was making travel difficult and officials made the decision to call off the card.
Fonner Park also lost its opening day program on Feb. 22 due to snow.
