Chad Brown long ago circled the Palm Beach Stakes as the starting point for Balance the Books this year. But when the colt came down with a temperature a couple of weeks before that March 3 grass race at Gulfstream Park, “we had to go to Plan B,” Brown said this week from his winter headquarters at the Palm Meadows training center in south Florida.
A six-furlong allowance race last Friday featuring four stakes winners may end up being the Golden Gate Fields race of the meet.
Bailouttheminster won the race by a head after being passed by Gallant Son, who was coming off a victory in the Albany Stakes, in the lane. It was a gutty, gritty performance.
The race wasn’t a good betting race. Bailouttheminister and Gallant Son are proven sprinters. Comebackers Hudson Landing and Control Seeker are routers preparing for the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on April 27.
Al Stall Jr. has a lot going on these days at Fair Grounds. Less than two weeks away from shipping many of his better horses to Kentucky while leaving others behind to compete at Louisiana Downs, the married father of two still has work to do and decisions to make in New Orleans while he agonizes over the two positive medication tests he has under appeal to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Titletown Five is being rerouted to the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby on March 30 because the timing of the race will allow him to have another workout and also because the Louisiana Derby awards the winner 100 qualifing points for the Kentucky Derby, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said on Tuesday. The horse had been pointed for Sunday’s Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby at Sunland Park, which gives 50 points to the winner.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Saginaw has lost only five times in his last 16 starts dating back 447 days. Three of those losses, however, were in races run around two turns over Aqueduct’s inner track.
Due to the delayed opening of Aqueduct’s main track, Thursday’s $75,000 Compelling Word Stakes for New York-breds will be contested as a one-mile race around two turns over the inner track instead of a one-turn mile, perhaps opening the door for a mild upset.
Kevin Greely has been named the director of racing at Indiana Downs. For the past three years, Greely has been the racing secretary at Hoosier Park. He is currently the assistant racing secretary at Gulfstream Park.
Centaur Gaming, which owns Hoosier Park, recently acquired Indiana Downs and casino and has received permission from the Indiana Racing Commission to run all of the state’s Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse dates at Indiana Downs this year. Indiana’s Standardbred races will all be held at Hoosier Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bob Baffert is going to be in action in Derby preps every weekend from now until the Kentucky Derby on May 4, and though last weekend did not pan out as planned, with Den’s Legacy and Super Ninety Nine both losing in the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn, Baffert was looking forward Monday at Santa Anita, where he worked Flashback, Code West, Power Broker, and Sunland Derby prospects Govenor Charlie and Shakin It Up on a cool, overcast morning.
Whenever Mother Nature allows it to be turf season, Hessonite will be ready.
The seven-time stakes-winning New York-bred mare worked five furlongs in 1:02.45 on Monday at Belmont Park, her fifth breeze since rejoining trainer David Donk’s barn earlier this winter.
“She’s really doing well,” Donk said. “We’re happy with her; she’s happy with herself. We look forward to having a little fun with her this year.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Even trainer Wesley Ward isn’t sure which of the two 3-year-olds he has entered in Wednesday’s $58,850 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park, Rip Roarin Ritchie or Off the Page, is better. The only way to find out is to put them in the starting gate and let them duke it out, along with seven others, in the five-furlong turf dash.
