INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Sunday is the final day of the Hollywood Park autumn meeting, and the program is highlighted by the first running of the $200,000 King Glorious Stakes for 2-year-old California-breds over seven furlongs.
[HOLLYWOOD PARK: Get PPs and watch Saturday's full card live]
The projected field of 11 is expected to include the stakes winners Monument (California Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita) and Strong Wind (Graduation Stakes at Del Mar).
My Miss Aurelia, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2011 who suffered her first loss when second in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic on Nov. 2, will make her next start in the $300,000 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.
Trained by Steve Asmussen, My Miss Aurelia has won 6 of 7 starts and $2,386,000, all for owners George Bolton and Stonestreet Stable. In the BC Ladies’ Classic, she finished second by 1 1/2 lengths to Royal Delta, closing from fifth in a field of eight.
STICKNEY, Ill. – In early October, a race-ready horse named Banner Bill was shipped from New York to Hawthorne with the plan of racing him in Illinois-bred stakes competition. Things did not work out as intended. Banner Bill came into the barn of trainer Jim DiVito, the very barn where the equine herpesvirus that still looms over the Hawthorne meet broke out Oct. 14, the weekend before Banner Bill was to race.
Hialeah Park launches its fourth season of Quarter Horse racing on Saturday with trials for two of its richest races of the meet.
Saturday’s eight-race card, which begins at 2 p.m. Eastern, will feature four trials apiece for the $100,000 Hialeah Derby, a 440-yard race for 3-year-olds, and the $100,000 Hialeah Lassie Futurity, a 400-yard race for 2-year-old fillies. Both finals, along with the $100,000 Hialeah Laddie Futurity for colts and geldings, will be part of the South Florida Quarter Horse Festival on Dec. 30.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Jane Cibelli was an instant hit when stabled regularly at Gulfstream Park for the first time last year. And all signs point to her having an even better season this winter.
The English-born Cibelli won 10 races from just 43 starters during the 2011-12 Gulfstream meet. She also finished fourth in the standings during the corresponding session at Tampa Bay Downs. Cibelli has her barn split again this year, with 16 horses stabled locally and another 30 at Tampa.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. already knows Itsmyluckyday is stakes quality on the dirt. Now he wants to find out if his promising 2-year-old is capable of winning stakes races on grass as well.
Plesa will get an answer to that question Saturday at Gulfstream Park when Itsmyluckyday takes on nine rivals in the $100,000 Dania Beach, a one-mile race that is the first 2-year-old stakes on turf of the 2012-13 meeting.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The start of Eblouissante’s career is becoming eerily similar to that of her half-sister Zenyatta.
Zenyatta, the 2010 Horse of the Year, won her debut at Hollywood Park on Nov. 22, 2007, the first of 19 consecutive wins. The 3-year-old Eblouissante won her debut at Hollywood Park on Nov. 16.
Zenyatta won her second start in an allowance race at Hollywood Park on Dec. 15, 2007. Eblouissante starts in an allowance race for fillies and mares on Saturday, which is, of course, Dec. 15.
PHOENIX – While Saturday’s $35,000 City of Phoenix Stakes at Turf Paradise isn’t long on quantity – the six-furlong race for fillies and mares drew a field of just six – it makes up for it with quality. A case can be made for each of the half-dozen in the field.
Fair Meadows in Tulsa, Okla., has reversed itself and will conduct live racing in 2013, track official Ron Shotts said Thursday. The track, which operates a mixed meet each summer at fair grounds facilities in Tulsa, last month made plans to cease operations after the fair board entered into a sponsorship agreement with a local Native American tribe that called for discontinuing live racing.
He’s doing it with the proverbial arm tied behind his back. Mike Maker once again is atop the trainer standings at Turfway Park despite the fact he takes his best horses to Florida every winter.
Maker, who into this week of action led the holiday meet with four victories, has won 11 meet titles at Turfway while generally maintaining a string comprised of horses of lesser abilities at the northern Kentucky track. He is particularly strong in the upper ranks at Turfway, having won 19 stakes since the 2009 spring-meet.
