OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Arctic Arrogance, forced to miss last Saturday’s Grade 3 Gotham Stakes after missing training time due to illness, returned to the work tab Wednesday, breezing five furlongs in 1:02 over Belmont Park’s training track.
It was his first breeze since he finished second in the Withers Stakes on Feb. 11, his third consecutive runner-up finish in a stakes race that offered qualifying points toward the Kentucky Derby.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Classic Causeway, who swept the Sam F. Davis and Tampa Derby last year, could make his 4-year-old debut Saturday in the $100,000 Challenger going 1 1/16 miles on the main track.
“We entered, but we might keep him at Fair Grounds and run instead next weekend in the Essex at Oaklawn,” said Kenny McPeek, who won the Grade 1 Belmont Derby on turf with Classic Causeway not long after assuming his training following an 11th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby for Brian Lynch.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Eoin Harty is upbeat by nature, which is why it’s not all that surprising to hear him give Groveland a good chance in the Tampa Bay Derby.
“I’m always optimistic,” said Harty, who was here from his main Southern California base to saddle Groveland to a runner-up finish in the Sam F. Davis Stakes as a 21-1 shot. “Especially after his last race. He’s never run a bad race, really. It’s up to him to tell us whether or not he’s capable of running the kind of numbers it’ll take to become a real [Kentucky] Derby prospect or not. Hopefully, he’ll run another big race.”
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Mandy Pope counts herself as a Derby dreamer, but she refuses to take it to the extreme.
“It’s very exciting to get caught up in thinking ahead to the Kentucky Derby,” Pope said this week by phone from her Ocala base, “but if I don’t have any horses in the Derby, I’m fine with that. I want to do what’s best for developing the horse in the long run.”
Frank Hopf, the former assistant general manager at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston, has been hired as the senior director of racing for Colonial Downs in Virginia, the new owner of the track, Churchill Downs Inc., announced Tuesday.
The New Mexico Racing Commission is exploring options to compensate horseplayers who were impacted by a race last Friday in which stewards at Sunland Park have acknowledged that they mistakenly disqualified a horse from second to fourth, according to the executive director of the commission.
Woodbine has announced its 2023 stakes schedule along with racing dates of April 22 to Dec. 10 for the 133-day meet.
The program will offer more than $17 million in purses, including 39 graded stakes, five Grade 1 events, and two $1 million fixtures, the King’s Plate and Woodbine Mile. The Grade 1 Canadian International returns at the shorter distance of 1 1/4 miles on Oct. 8 after not being contested in 2020 and 2022.
Local favorite Maryquitecontrary has been transferred from her trainer of record, Joe Catanese, to Shug McGaughey with an eye on heading to Kentucky to make her next start in the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland on April 8.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - It wasn’t just the familiar parade of Todds and Chads making multiple visits to the winner’s circle Saturday at Gulfstream. Kelsey Danner also made two such appearances, most notably after Danse Macabre pulled a 12-1 upset of the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride under ship-in jockey Adam Beschizza.
