SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Stablemates Forte and Tapit Trice worked a half-mile together Thursday morning in 48.61 seconds over Saratoga’s main track as both prepare for a start in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 26.
With Forte on the outside under Irad Ortiz Jr., the pair went their first quarter in 24.61 seconds, their final quarter in 24.00, and galloped out five furlongs in 1:01.87, six furlongs in 1:14.51, and seven furlongs in 1:27.21.
Through Sunday, about a third of the way through the Del Mar summer meeting, jockey Umberto Rispoli was in first-place in a category he would have preferred to avoid.
Rispoli led all riders with 16 second-place finishes, and ranked third overall with 12 wins. Juan Hernandez was first in the standings with 15 wins, and four second-place finishes, while Hector Berrios had 13 wins and six seconds.
“We have a lot of seconds,” Rispolli reflected on Thursday morning after training hours.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After having his first opportunity to start Love Reigns over the turf this summer at Saratoga washed away when the Coronation Cup was switched to the main track on the second day of the meet, trainer Wesley Ward is hoping history won’t repeat itself when he tries to bring her back here again as the heavy favorite in Saturday’s $150,000 Galway Stakes.
Horseshoe Indianapolis in Shelbyville, Indiana, will begin to show projected win odds for each horse in a race beginning with the second race at the track on Thursday. The enhancement will be provided by DRF Formulator Projected Odds, a technology developed by Daily Racing Form and available on its digital past performance products.
Jockeys Isaac Castillo, Luis Fuentes, and Harry Hernandez are among the new faces set to base at the Remington Park meet that opens Aug. 18. Entries for the first card of the season are being taken Thursday.
Castillo is coming in from Monmouth Park at the request of Remington’s all-time leading owner, Danny Caldwell, said agent Dylan Fazio.
“Danny Caldwell always supported us at Oaklawn and he wanted us to come down there,” Fazio said Tuesday. “We rode the last five or six days of the meet there last year and we did well."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — A power outage as the result of a downed tree limb not far from the track forced the cancellation of Wednesday’s fifth race at Saratoga, continuing a trend of unfortunate circumstances that have plagued the first half of this meet.
Unbeaten in two starts, the 2-year-old filly Pushiness may have her first start in a graded stakes as soon as early September after winning her stakes debut in the CTBA Stakes at Del Mar last Sunday.
Owner Mike Repole and trainer Michael McCarthy have two options for Pushiness before the current Del Mar summer season ends Sept. 10 – the $125,000 Generous Portion Stakes for statebred fillies at six furlongs on Sept. 4, or the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante at seven furlongs on Sept. 9.
Del Mar will have a first post time of 3:30 p.m. on Friday and on Aug. 18 after jockeys expressed concern about visibility in later races on recent Friday programs that began at 4 p.m., track officials said earlier this week.
First post time on the final three Fridays of the current summer meeting – Aug. 25, Sept. 1, and Sept. 8 – will be 3 p.m. to adjust for earlier sunsets in late summer.
Ceiling Crusher, a two-time stakes winner beaten for the first time in her fifth start July 27, is an intended runner in the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks in West Virginia Aug. 25, if she can gain a berth in the field.
The $750,000 Charles Town Oaks at seven furlongs drew a whopping 65 nominations, but will be limited to 10 runners, with four also-eligibles. If the race draws more than 10, as expected, the field will be determined by graded stakes wins or placings, or graded stakes earnings as the first two criteria.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Dave O’Rourke, president and CEO of the New York Racing Association, said Wednesday his organization “dropped the ball” when it came to its handling of the timing of the announcement to take three races off the turf on Sunday at Saratoga and apologized to horseplayers for not being able to refund money wagered in multiple-race pools such as the late pick five.
