Trainer Mark Casse is hoping for a fast track for Prospective when the Kentucky Derby alum seeks his fifth stakes win of the year Sunday in the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby. It was a wet morning at Remington Park on Thursday, when Prospective was part of a 10-horse field drawn for the track’s marquee race.
“Hopefully, it will stop,” Casse said of the wet weather, which is expected to lift in advance of Sunday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Friday’s live racing program at Belmont Park has been canceled "due to anticipated heavy rain," the New York Racing Association announced Thursday afternoon.
As of 4 p.m. Thursday, the Friday forecast according to weather.com was as follows: "Variable clouds with showers and scattered thunderstorms, high 69 degrees; chance of rain 70 percent rainfall possibly over one inch."
Five of Friday’s nine races were scheduled for turf.
Six graded stakes races are scheduled for Super Saturday, Sept. 29.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Headed by Sean Avery and Poseidon’s Warrior, the last two Alfred G. Vanderbilt winners, a field of 10 sprinters will clash at Belmont Park in Saturday’s 74th running of the $400,000 Vosburgh Invitational Stakes at six furlongs.
The Vosburgh is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race, providing the winner a fees-paid berth to the Sprint. It also is the first leg of an all-Grade 1 pick four with a $500,000-guaranteed pool. Post time is scheduled for 4:04 p.m. Eastern.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Already flush with talented turf fillies and mares in his barn, trainer Chad Brown picked up another one when Dream Peace was transferred to him following her second-place finish in the Grade 1 Diana Stakes at Saratoga.
Saturday, Dream Peace will make her first start for Brown in the Grade 1, $600,000 Flower Bowl Invitational, attempting to earn a spot in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf Nov. 2 at Santa Anita. The winner of the Flower Bowl earns an automatic berth in the Filly and Mare Turf as part of the Win and You’re In program.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Include Me Out is already in, and does not need to win.
As for others in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes Saturday at Santa Anita, they have plenty to gain in the $250,000 Win and You’re In Breeders’ Cup prep for the Ladies’ Classic.
It might be a good time to beat the favorite, even though Include Me Out emerged as California queen this year, winning four of five graded stakes, including the Win and You’re In Clement Hirsch last out. But the Zenyatta is a merely a means to an end. It is only a prep race.
ARCADIA, Calif. – In the seven months since Byrama won an optional claimer on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita, the race looks better and better.
“I think she’s definitely a sprinter,” trainer Simon Callaghan said. “I’m thinking that six and a half furlongs is going to be her fort e .”
Byrama can prove Callaghan’s theory when she starts as the expected favorite in Saturday’s $70,000 Unzip Me Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course.
ELMONT, N.Y. – There have been seven different winners of the eight Grade 1 races run at a mile or over this year on the main track for 3-year-olds and up.
Though three of those horses – Ron the Greek, Fort Larned, and Hymn Book – are in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park, a horse who has not won a race this year could very well be the one to beat.
A trio of $100,000 stakes highlight the closing night card at Presque Isle Downs on Saturday evening. The finale of the 100-program meet includes a pair of 2-year-old races, the Presque Isle Debutante for fillies and the Fitz Dixon Memorial for males, along with the H.B.P.A. Stakes for older fillies and mares.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Point of Entry and Little Mike won arguably the two biggest turf stakes of the summer. On Saturday, they will face off at Belmont Park and will try to win one of the bigger turf races of the fall, the Grade 1, $600,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational.
[bc_video_id:263981:]ARCADIA, Calif. – For this weekend, the focus with the 4-year-old filly Marketing Mix is the $250,000 Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday.
The future can wait, trainer Tom Proctor says. He wants Marketing Mix to win the Grade 1 Rodeo Drive and confirm that she can win a race at the highest level.
“She needs to win one,” he said.
