ELMONT, N.Y. – If the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile were run this weekend, Little Mike would be one of the favorites.
Saturday, Little Mike will try to see where he would fit in the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Turf when he tries 1 1/2 miles for the first time in the Grade 1, $600,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A million-dollar turf sprint will be run Nov. 3 at Santa Anita, but the locals won’t know until Friday if they are good enough for the Breeders’ Cup.
A field of 13 entered the Grade 3, $100,000 Eddie D Stakes on Friday, opening day of the Santa Anita autumn meet. It is a six-figure prep race with seven-figure ramifications, and multiple stakes winner Comma to the Top is among the principal starters.
[SANTA ANITA: Get opening-day PPs and watch the full card live]
Called to Serve will be trainer Peter Eurton’s first starter at Remington Park on Sunday when he runs in the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby, but the horse’s co-owner, Marc Ferrell, already knows the drill in Oklahoma City.
“He won this race in the past, a couple of years ago,” said Eurton. “The horse was Fiddlers Afleet.”
POMONA, Calif. – Business boomed this fall at Fairplex Park, where the 2012 Los Angeles County Fair race meet ended Sunday with an all-sources handle increase of nearly 8 percent over 2011.
Average daily handle for the 13-day meet increased by nearly $350,000 as bettors wagered more than $5.1 million daily. Overall handle for the Sept. 7-24 meet according to preliminary figures was more than $67 million.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill returns to work Friday after serving a 40-day suspension for a 2010 medication violation. The end of the suspension coincides with Friday’s opening day of the Santa Anita autumn meeting.
O’Neill may have been gone for more than a month, but his stable was highly active. Led by assistant trainer Leandro Mora, the barn won 10 races in the final weeks at Del Mar and won with 15 of 96 starters overall racing throughout the nation.
MIAMI – Local 2-year-old filly sensation Rose to Gold is going to Kentucky after all.
One week after leaning toward backing off a bit on the undefeated and untested Rose to Gold, trainer Sal Santoro put his star on a van bound for Lexington along with four of her stablemates, all of whom are scheduled to compete at Keeneland over the next several weeks.
Rose to Gold has won her first two starts by a combined margin of 26 1/2 lengths, both victories coming in two-turn stakes races – the one-mile Lindsay Frolic and the mile-and-70-yard Brave Raj.
ARCADIA, Calif. – With anticipation high for the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 2-3, the six-week autumn meeting that begins at Santa Anita on Friday will fly by.
Santa Anita will host the Breeders’ Cup for the sixth time this year, and the focus will be on those two days.
The three-day opening weekend features seven graded stakes with Breeders’ Cup implications, including five Grade 1 stakes Saturday. The weekend of Oct. 6-8 includes six more stakes that are preps for Breeders’ Cup races.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is hoping a change of surface does for Crossbow what it did for Questing.
After disappointing in his last three stakes tries on dirt, Crossbow is scheduled to make his turf debut in Friday’s $80,000 Home of the Free Stakes at Belmont Park. The Home of the Free is scheduled for seven furlongs on the Widener turf course, though rain is in the forecast.
Earlier this year, McLaughlin moved Questing from the turf to the dirt, and she won three consecutive races, including the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks and Grade 1 Alabama.
If Hollywood Dreams is ever going to carry his considerable speed around three turns, he should do it when he runs in an allowance race that carries a $40,000 claiming option for 3-year-olds and up at Northlands Park on Friday. The one-mile race, which is restricted to horses that have not won a race at a mile more in 2012, drew six horses, and Hollywood Dreams should be able to control the race right from the start.
