SANTA ANITA Track Fast Sunny Temp. 66
ARCADIA, Calif. – Friday was the calm before the storm as far as this year’s Breeders’ Cup is concerned. Not the “Frankenstorm” heading up the East Coast that could impact travel plans for dozens of potential Breeders’ Cup starters early next week, but the storm of workers expected to rain down on the Santa Anita main track and turf course over the next two mornings.
Cold Cash 123 is two races away from successfully defending his title as World Champion Quarter Horse.
His main rival in the older horse division – El Aguila Real – is being pointed for the same two races in an effort to earn the title.
Sunday, they meet for the first time in the $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship over 440 yards. The race is a key prep for the $750,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos on Dec. 15, which has a pivotal role in year-end championship voting.
[bc_video_id:266608:]ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Nipissing will put her unbeaten record on the line Sunday at Woodbine in the 67th running of the $250,000 Princess Elizabeth Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile route for Canadian-bred 2-year-old fillies.
Nipissing is a rare precocious runner by the recently deceased Queen’s Plate winner Niigon. She came wide from mid-pack to take her debut by three lengths in a seven-furlong maiden special for Ontario-sired fillies Aug. 24.
FORT ERIE, Ontario – The annual Fort Erie awards dinner on Thursday evening drew a large crowd.
The leading rider award went to Terry Husbands, who gradually pulled away from the rest the field in the final months of the season.
Leading apprentice went to Jeffrey Alderson, the top female rider was Melanie Pinto, and Bradley Wilson was selected by his fellow riders as the outstanding jockey of the year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Debuting in late August at Saratoga, Sign was largely ignored at 10-1 odds but proved dominant, emphatically winning by 11 1/2 lengths from just off the pace.
Returning two months later in Sunday’s opening-day Grade 2, $150,000 Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill Downs, her longshot days are over. Off that single race, she has been installed as the 5-2 morning-line favorite against seven more experienced rivals that include Matron third-place Seasoned Warrior and Arlington-Washington Lassie runner-up La Song.
If the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup are considered the two biggest happenings in North American racing, well, Churchill Downs is finally skipping a turn.
Since the Breeders’ Cup left Santa Anita after the 2009 running, each of those mega-events has been held in Louisville, Ky., at Churchill. Now, as the Breeders’ Cup returns to California, Churchill can focus on its own little slice of the racing world for the next four weeks, although it’s debatable whether that will qualify as a period of relative idleness.
This has been a great year for Corey Lanerie. Not only did the 37-year-old jockey dominate the spring meet when earning his first riding title at Churchill Downs, but his win total at Keeneland this fall was his most ever and he is on pace to surpass his career high in annual earnings.
They all start out equal, more or less, these 2-year-olds that make up the entire opening-day card of the Churchill Downs fall meet Sunday. Or so hopes John Good, the former longtime Bob Baffert assistant who will be sending out one of the mid-priced horses, Agave Cat, when he gives the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes a try.
“He’s always been a nice little horse,” said Good. “He’s still kind of mentally immature, but that’s the way a lot of 2-year-olds are. He’s still putting everything together, but he does have a lot of talent.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Double McTwist, a very promising 2-year-old gelding trained by Ralph Biamonte, was euthanized after breaking down on the main track here Thursday morning.
“He’d just worked a nice easy half, getting ready for the Frost King,” said Biamonte, who had given jockey Alex Solis a leg up for the drill. “When he was galloping out, Alex heard something snap in behind. He fractured a pastern in his left hind.”
The Remington Park stewards have issued the first rulings for dermorphin in Oklahoma to trainer Roberto Sanchez-Munoz, who was cited for 10 different horses testing positive for the Class 1 drug, a painkiller, in April and May. The horses ran during Remington’s meet for Quarter Horses. The stewards also cited Sanchez-Munoz’s brother and assistant trainer, Alejandro Sanchez-Munoz, who is equally responsible under the trainer responsibility rule in Oklahoma.
Both men have a small window of time to appeal. A call to their attorney, Cody Kelley, was not immediately returned Friday.
