GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – Fonner Park is scheduled to begin its traditional 31-day session Friday, weather permitting. The rest of the Nebraska racing calendar will have a much different look this year.
The opening-day card is being threatened by a strong winter storm forecast to move into the area Wednesday afternoon that could dump more than a foot of snow on Grand Island through Thursday evening.
With a clear year-end goal of defending his title in the Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos in December, Rylees Boy will be raced sparingly in coming months.
Trainer Paul Jones made those plans earlier this week after Rylees Boy won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Sunday, a race that offered an automatic berth for the winner to the Champion of Champions.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - He’s Had Enough arrived safely at Gulfstream Park from California on Tuesday and got his first feel for the local surroundings going to the racetrack to train Wednesday morning.
He’s Had Enough was accompanied both on the trip and out on the track by trainer Doug O’Neill’s stable pony, the former champion Lava Man, who was returning to Gulfstream for the first time since 2005, when he finished a well-beaten seventh in the $1 million Sunshine Millions Classic.
ARCADIA, Calif. – After starting in stakes in 13 of his last 14 starts, an allowance race at Santa Anita on Friday may be what the veteran gelding Tres Borrachos needs to end a lengthy losing streak and reach a career milestone.
Tres Borrachos has not won in 13 starts, since the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar in July 2011. If he runs first or second in Friday’s second race at Santa Anita, he will surpass $1 million in career earnings.
“He deserves it,” trainer Marty Jones said.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Eleven horses were entered for Saturday's Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park, but at least one, Sky Captain, figures to come out at scratch time. Trainer Mark Casse said Wednesday that barring any significant scratches, he’ll come out and await either Turfway’s Battaglia or the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct for Sky Captain’s stakes debut. Both races will be decided March 2.
Gallant Son won three stakes at Emerald Downs as a 2-year-old and ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The 7-year-old horse scored his first victory on a synthetic surface Monday when he exploded in the lane to win the six-furlong Albany Stakes. It was only his second win since capturing the Grade 3 Inglewood in 2010.
Trainer Frank Lucarelli admitted to being “hesitant” to running him on Tapeta. Gallant Son was 0 for 9 on synthetic tracks and was entered against several superior runners on synthetic surfaces.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Two years ago, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth with Soldat, a War Front colt best known for his exploits on turf at 2.
On Saturday, McLaughlin is hoping lightning will strike in a similar manner with Elmutahid, a son of Street Cry who made all four of his 2-year-old starts on grass before switching to dirt to register an impressive maiden win over a sloppy track here at Gulfstream last month.
What has become an interesting trend continued at Golden Gate Fields in the Grade 3, $200,000 El Camino Real Derby last Saturday.
A Southern California front-runner set what seemed to be a comfortable pace but then ran into a brick wall at the top of the stretch.
Manando, the 2-1 favorite from the Bob Baffert barn, set the pace in the 1 1/8-mile race with fractions of 23.10 seconds, 47.34, and 1:11.67 and finished dead last.
Maryland shipper Fear the Facelift continued her love affair with the racing surface at Charles Town to prevail in a three-horse photo in Tuesday night’s $35,000 Presidents Day Handicap.
A 4-year-old filly based at Laurel Park with trainer Donald Barr, Fear the Facelift ($15.20) came from just off the pace under Richard Monterrey to get up by a neck over Flip the Switch, who was a neck in front of Pretty Miss Trippi. Dorothy’s Aurora finished fifth of six fillies and mares as the 4-5 favorite.
NEW ORLEANS - The Silverbulletday Stakes is the first in Fair Grounds’ series of 3-year-old filly dirt-route stakes, a series that has regularly produced top early season 3-year-old fillies. But the shape of the local division has changed dramatically since the Jan. 19 Silverbulletday.
None of the first four finishers from that race will contest the Rachel Alexandra Stakes, and another prominent local filly, Seaneen Girl, also is sitting out Saturday’s race.
