Trainer Dan Blacker faces a possible fine or suspension after failing to complete pre-workout veterinary exams for runners in his stable on more than 500 occasions in an 18-month period ending on July 1, according to a complaint on the California Horse Racing Board’s website.
A hearing in the case was scheduled for Friday, but has been postponed, according to steward Kim Sawyer. Blacker did not return a message on Wednesday regarding the case.
David Bernstein recently retired from training in California after selling his last active runner, a situation he hopes is only temporary.
Bernstein, 83, had his last runner in March with Hoop Dream, who finished second in a $4,000 claimer at Golden Gate Fields. Hoop Dream was recently sold, Bernstein said.
“I ran out of horses,” Bernstein said on Wednesday from his home in Rancho Cucamonga. “We sold our last horse and that was it.”
(This story was originally published in 2017 and has been updated)
COUNT FLEET
1944 C. HEWITT
“THE CHAMP”.
The simple words were scratched into wet cement more than three-quarters of a century ago.
In a corner of a long neglected and dimly-lit Belmont feed room, the words barely discernible a few years back have since disappeared beneath a layer of mud. A leaky nearby washer and still-used hose occasionally wet them; people working there walk on them.
No one – even those still stabled in the old barn – notice them.
Drew’s Gold, a two-time listed stakes winner and runner-up in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens, has been purchased privately by Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Alnuami’s RRR Racing from James Chapman and co-owner Stuart Tsujimoto.
Drew’s Gold has been turned over to trainer Chad Summers with the goal of getting to the Dubai Golden Shaheen next March.
In the summer, RRR Racing purchased Clapton and, after a fourth in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he won the Grade 2 Lukas Classic.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Book’em Danno, dominant winner of Sunday’s off-the-turf Futurity Stakes at Aqueduct, will likely have one more start this year but where and on what surface is yet to be determined.
The Futurity, when scheduled for six furlongs on turf, was billed as a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race, meaning the winner got a fees-paid berth into the Juvenile Turf Sprint plus a $10,000 travel stipend. This year’s Breeders’ Cup will be held at Santa Anita on Nov. 3-4.
The 4-year-old colt Smile Happy, who ran one of the fastest races this year winning the Alysheba Stakes in May, has been getting his mind right at trainer Kenny McPeek’s farm in Florida in preparation for a 2024 campaign.
Smile Happy didn’t race for 10 months after finishing eighth in the 2022 Kentucky Derby. The Alysheba, on May 5, was his third start following the long break and in it Smile Happy made manifest the vast unexpressed reserve of talent he’d hinted at throughout his career, winning by two lengths with an elite 110 Beyer Speed Figure.
Albizu is among the horses trainer Robertino Diodoro plans to bring to Zia Park for the $1.1 million Land of Enchantment card of seven stakes Nov. 28.
Albizu is coming off a win in the $100,000 David M. Vance at Remington Park. He closed from last for a half-length victory in the six-furlong stakes on Sept. 24 and Diodoro said he will now target the $100,000 Zia Park Sprint.
“He’s a horse that tries all the time,” Diodoro said. “He didn’t have a huge pace to run at and still came running. He had some pace, but not crazy. I just thought he ran a really big race.
Du Jour and Exaulted, the first two finishers of the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on Sept. 2, are on comparable schedules in advance of expected starts in the toughest race of their careers in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.
On the infield training track at Santa Anita on Friday, Du Jour worked a half-mile in 47.20 seconds, while Exaulted was given a half-mile time of 47.40 seconds even though he continued the work around the first turn, according to trainer Pete Eurton.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Slow Down Andy, emphatic winner of the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes last weekend at Santa Anita, will have to wait until next year for another shot at the Breeders’ Cup, trainer Doug O’Neill said Thursday.
The good news is owners Paul and Zilla Reddam plan to race the son of Nyquist next season at age 5. O’Neill said the colt’s setback is minor, though untimely.
California trainers Dan Blacker and Jeff Mullins were recently sanctioned by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit for violations that occurred with runners in their care at the Del Mar summer meeting.
Blacker was suspended seven days, beginning on Tuesday of this week, and fined $1,000 after Miss O’Brien tested positive for a controlled substance, the tranquilizer acepromazine, after a workout on Aug. 23.
