ARCADIA, Calif. – An allowance route in January cannot be mistaken as a Kentucky Derby prep race. But for the promising 3-year-olds entered Thursday in race 6 at Santa Anita, a first-level allowance at one mile is a good place to start dreaming.
“Anytime you have a 3-year-old at this time of year, you have ambitions,” Appealing Tale’s trainer Peter Miller said.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Goldrush Girl will make a key surface switch at Oaklawn Park on Thursday when she moves back to dirt for a second-level allowance at a mile. The field of eight fillies and mares also includes Lady Jensen, a two-time restricted stakes winner this fall at Remington Park, and Songs and Sonnets, a daughter of the multiple Grade 3-winning racemare Bedanken.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Will Take Charge, the winner of the $150,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn, has a few options for his next start and will likely run Feb. 18 in Oaklawn's Grade 3, $300,000 Southwest at 1 1/16 miles, said his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas.
“Right now, if I had to say, I’m pretty much locked in,” Lukas said of targeting the Southwest.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas is planning another New Orleans invasion. He said at his Oaklawn Park base on Tuesday that Oxbow is among four horses he has pointing for each of the graded stakes to be run at Fair Grounds on Feb. 23.
“The races fit, and it’s a lot easier to take four down there than one,” said Lukas.
Jockey Russell Baze can now look forward to his next milestone – 12,000 victories.
Baze competed in his 50,000th Thoroughbred race Friday, finishing third aboard Finish Rich in Nyc. But he still made it to the winner’s circle for a photo to commemorate the achievement. Fellow jockeys and track officials joined him for the photograph.
There was a little turnabout in Saturday’s $300,000 California Breeders Champion Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita.
Fillies with Northern California roots finished one-two-three, with the Ed Moger Jr.-trained Qiaona defeating the Jeff Bonde-trained Unusual Way by a half-length and the Steve Specht-trained trained Marks Mine another length back in third for a $1,764 trifecta. Northern California training king Jerry Hollendorfer’s favored Doinghardtimeagain was fourth for a Northern California training superfecta.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A 5-year-old Arkansas-bred who has lost his last six races may be the horse to follow in California’s top turf miles this year.
Strong Suit was winless in five stakes in England last year, and finished 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs in 2011, but the way he is training and his four group stakes wins in England as a 2- and 3-year-old in 2010 and 2011 has new trainer Simon Callaghan confident that the horse can play a key role on turf in the United States this season.
Trainer Rick Violette Jr. observed at last Friday’s board meeting of the New York Racing Association that “not everybody can eat steak and lobster year round.” Horseplayers looking to upgrade from hamburger to surf and turf, however, will give both of his runners a long look in Thursday’s late pick four sequence.
In race 7, a one-mile starter optional claimer originally on the menu a week ago, the New York-bred Go Get the Basil stretches out against open company after closing out his juvenile campaign with six-furlong scores at 23-1 and 10-1.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – There are three entry-level optional-claiming races carded over the turf on Thursday’s 10-race program at Gulfstream Park. Among all the horses competing in those three events, the two most intriguing are Fearless Jacq and To My Valentine, who will square off against one another in race 9, a five-furlong dash for 3-year-old fillies which carries a $54,500 purse.
