Defending champions Ben’s Cat, Eighttofasttocatch, and Sloane Ranger headline the fields that were finalized Wednesday for Saturday’s Jim McKay Maryland Million at Laurel Park.
The 11-race card will offer total purses of $1.05 million to the offspring of Maryland-based stallions. It’s the second biggest day of racing on the Maryland racing calendar, topped only by Preakness Day.
ELMONT, N.Y. – It pays to take notice when the European-based trainer Jeremy Noseda ships a horse to New York for a stakes race.
In 2010, Noseda won the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct with Awesome Act. Last year, he shipped Western Aristocrat to Belmont Park to win the Grade 1 Jamaica. In the last seven years, Noseda has three stakes wins from nine starters in New York.
Really good horses have run in the Indiana Derby before. Lookin At Lucky won the race in 2010. Brass Hat captured the 2004 edition. And way back in 2002, Perfect Drift took top honors. But it’s highly unlikely that as many good horses have run in the same Indiana Derby as will contest the 19th edition of the race Saturday afternoon at Hoosier Park.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – So much for Wise Dan scaring off the opposition.
Confirmed only Tuesday as a starter by trainer Charlie Lopresti, Wise Dan will be favored Saturday when facing 11 other older horses in the Grade 1, $750,000 Shadwell Turf Mile, the richest race of the 17-day Keeneland fall meet. Keeneland racing officials were fearful the presence of the ultra-fleet Wise Dan would limit the size of the field, but clearly that was not the case when entries were drawn Wednesday.
Amazombie, the champion sprinter of 2011, will have as many as six rivals in Saturday’s $250,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, a key prep for the Breeders' Cup Sprint on Nov. 3.
The Santa Anita Sprint Championship is run over six furlongs and is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the winner, if nominated to the program.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Mario Gutierrez is back riding in Southern California for the first time in three months at the current Santa Anita autumn meeting, at least when he is not busy traveling around North America for major stakes.
Best known for winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes on I’ll Have Another in May, Gutierrez, 26, has a busy itinerary this weekend, one that will cover approximately 6,400 miles from Saturday through Monday riding at Keeneland, Hoosier Park, Santa Anita, and Hastings racecourse.
Moon Buzz might have a tactical advantage Friday night when she seeks to nail down her first stakes win in the $50,000 Flashy Lady at Remington Park in Oklahoma City.
"She's got speed, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of speed in there," said Steve Margolis, who trains Moon Buzz.
The Flashy Lady is a six-furlong race for fillies and mares. It goes with a field of seven, including All About Allie, a multiple stakes winner returning to dirt, site of her seven wins, and Burst of Life, who is 6 for 8 over the main track at Remington.
A pair of Indiana-sired 2-year-old stakes begin Hoosier Park's richest weekend of racing Friday night. The Indiana Stallion for fillies and Crown Ambassador for colts and geldings will both be contested going six furlongs and each will have a purse of $84,000.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Saratoga or Del Mar? That’s a win-win argument for summer. But what about Keeneland in the spring or Keeneland in the fall?
Can’t lose there, either.
Six months after the budding greenery of April drew them out from a long winter, now comes the rustic beauty of October to get racing fans pumped up. This rite of Kentucky autumn is tied inextricably to top-shelf racing, as once again the rich FallStars Weekend will put an immediate sense of urgency into a 17-day meet.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Brazilian filly In the Stars was second or third in four group races in that country in the final months of 2011. She could start in races at that level in California next month if she wins a $50,000 allowance race over a mile on turf at Santa Anita on Friday.
“We need to get past this one,” trainer Richard Mandella said.
