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.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Mott has never won the Grade 1 Beldame Stakes, but the race has certainly served him well when it has come to the Breeders Cup.
Ajina (1997), Unrivaled Belle (2010), and Royal Delta (2011) all finished second in the Beldame before winning the Ladies’ Classic – called the Distaff when Ajina won it.
“I’d like to change that around a little bit one year,” Mott said Thursday morning at Belmont Park. “I’d love to try to win a Breeders’ Cup coming off a win in the Beldame rather than a second in the Beldame.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Both Capo Bastone and Gabriel Charles had trained sensationally coming into the Del Mar Futurity earlier this month, but the way the race unfolded, with a moderate pace and a bunched field, neither ever got a fair chance to show his best. They were all revved up with no place to go.
On Saturday at Santa Anita, they return in the Grade 1, $250,000 FrontRunner Stakes, and a victory here would certainly erase the bad taste of Del Mar, for the FrontRunner offers a fees-paid berth to the Nov. 3 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile through the Win and You’re In program.
