Churchill Downs opens a five-day holiday week of racing with competitive allowance-level events on both Thursday and Friday that feature several stakes performers. Churchill will then run its usual Saturday and Sunday cards, followed by a Memorial Day program on Monday. Two stakes for fillies and mares will highlight this span.
Three solid events on card
STICKNEY, Ill. – Two Phil’s on Sunday at Hawthorne had work No. 1 since finishing second May 6 in the Kentucky Derby.
The drill was a mere maintenance half-mile timed in 50.80 seconds but suggested the colt had, as trainer Larry Rivelli has maintained over the last two weeks, come out of the Derby in encouraging condition.
“He came back good, he looks good, his energy is good,” Rivelli said.
And Rivelli on Monday still was good with the decision he and Two Phil’s owners made to pass Saturday’s Preakness Stakes.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Salesman has never run in a graded or group stakes, or in a race worth six figures. A three-time winner in France, Salesman has not started since June or in the United States. Despite those apparent shortcomings, Salesman is among the list of probable starters in Monday’s Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on turf at Santa Anita.
Salesman has put in a series of rapid works at Santa Anita, leaving trainer Richard Mandella enthusiastic about the 6-year-old’s appearance in the $500,000 Shoemaker Mile.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Together, the veteran California-breds Brickyard Ride and The Chosen Vron have won an astonishing 24 of 40 starts, including 17 stakes.
They have never met, and a rendezvous is far from a certainty at Santa Anita on Sunday when the track hosts five stakes for statebreds.
Brickyard Ride, the winner of 13 of 25 starts, is expected to run in the $100,000 Thor’s Echo Stakes at six furlongs, while The Chosen Vron is a candidate for that race and the $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes at a mile on turf.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Not that he had a rough winter, but trainer Phil D’Amato’s stable has been particularly productive this spring.
Across the nation on Saturday, D’Amato won two turf sprint stakes with Beer Can Man in the Jim McKay Turf Sprint at Pimlico, and the Mizdirection Stakes with Elm Drive for fillies and mares at Santa Anita. On Sunday, D’Amato’s Conclude won the Desert Code Stakes for 3-year-old turf sprinters in what could be a prep for the $100,000 Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar on July 21.
Black-Eyed Susan/Preakness $2 daily double will-pays:
Black-Eyed Susan winner Taxed (No. 10, $24) with:
1) National Treasure, $93.40
2) Chase the Chaos, $1,163.60
3) Mage, $62.40
4) Coffeewithchris, $856.20
5) Red Route One, $196.40
6) Perform, $217.80
7) Blazing Sevens, $160.40
8) First Mission, scratched
Four horses were scratched from Friday’s third race at Belmont Park when those horses were not treated with the anti-bleeding medication Lasix in the prescribed timeframe, according to the New York Racing Association and several of the trainers in the race.
Impazible Donna, trained by Bruce Levine; Dancing Sophia, trained by Chris Englehart; Ok Honey, trained by Amira Chichakly; and Movie Moxy, trained by Linda Rice, were all scratched out of the second-level allowance/optional $62,500 claiming race that carried a $100,000 purse.
BALTIMORE – First Mission, the 5-2 second choice on the morning line for Saturday's $1.65 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, will scratch from the race due to a yet-to-be-determined issue with his left hind ankle, his connections announced Friday morning.
Mage won the Kentucky Derby in his fourth career start for a four-pronged partnership. The Preakness Stakes favorite races for OGMA Investments, a partnership helmed by trainer Gustavo Delgado’s son and assistant Gustavo Delgado Jr.; bloodstock agent Ramiro Restrepo; Sam Herzberg’s Sterling Racing; and Commonwealth, a sports investment app offering micro-shares in racehorses.
