ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Kaplan doesn’t see any reason Musical Romance can’t have as good a fall campaign this year as she did last year when she upset the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and was named champion female sprinter.
Musical Romance, away from the races for two months, will have her final prep for this year’s Breeders’ Cup on Saturday when she runs in the Grade 2, $200,000 Gallant Bloom Handicap at Belmont Park.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – It is never easy for an unknown jockey to break in after a meet has begun, but Antonio Reyes has made a strong impressions since he arrived at Hastings in late June, and he should do well here when he returns next year.
Reyes has won 23 races from 123 mounts, and seven of his wins have been for trainer Jim Brown, who is his biggest supporter.
“He is the best rider here,” said Brown. “He’s won races for me that nobody else could have. Watch his ride on Nata Loca and you’ll see what I mean.”
Saturday’s running of the $50,000-added Harvest Stakes at the San Joaquin Fair in Stockton will match the now horse, the defending champ, and the had-her-prep horse. The six-furlong sprint for fillies and mares attracted a full field of 10.
The now horse is Bleach Blonde, who scored a four-length victory when running against five of Saturday’s rivals in a six-furlong allowance race at Golden Gate Fields on Sept. 8. It was only her second try at six furlongs in 36 career starts.
Rum Ruckus is overdue to get his second win, and he may have found the right spot to get over the hump when he runs in a first-level allowance race that will serve as Saturday’s feature at Northlands Park. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up drew six horses and goes as the seventh race on the eight-race card that begins at 1 p.m. Mountain.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The Aug. 6 Shepperton Stakes was bittersweet for owner/trainer Paul Buttigieg. He won it with his rising star Royal Egbert, but his big horse, Gypsy Ring, suffered a suspensory injury in the Ontario-sired stakes and might never race again. Royal Egbert will be back in action Saturday at Woodbine in the $125,000 Overskate Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for Ontario-sired runners.
The veterinarian comes under the Ian Wilkes shed row and starts the conversation this way: “Mate, that filly ...”
Wilkes is “mate,” just as Dr. Rick Fischer – or you or the next guy – is “mate” to Wilkes. It’s an Australian catch-all, a mostly endearing term of familiarity. Wilkes, 47, has become nearly everyone’s “mate” on the backside of Churchill Downs and the other racetracks he habituates. It’s a very good thing.
Apprentice jockey Dylan Davis helped grow his family’s racing legacy Wednesday when the son of longtime top jockey Robbie Davis and the younger brother of Jackie Davis, who is among the leaders in the Suffolk Downs riding colony, won the first race of his career.
Davis, 18, rallied Soldier Sam, his 26th career mount, from last in the 11-horse, seventh-race field to a flying 1 1/2-length win. The youngest of six children, Davis is a graduate of Saratoga Springs High in New York and the North American Racing Academy run by Dorchester’s own Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron.
Kentucky Downs, the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky, ended its abbreviated meet Wednesday with major gains in handle from last year, thanks largely to more races and to purses enhanced by revenues from Instant Racing machines.
Gross all-sources handle of $7,570,730 was more than double the $3.75 million wagered during a four-day 2011 meet, while average daily handle of $1,514,146 was up 61 percent. The average ontrack handle of $550,757 was up 40 percent.
POMONA, Calif. – Jockey Edwin Maldonado won four races – including the $50,000 Governor’s Cup Handicap – on Wednesday evening at Fairplex Park, where Maldonado is trying to dethrone Martin Pedroza as leading rider at the Los Angeles County Fair.
With four victories on the twilight card, including Close to the Edge ($13.40) in the Governor’s Cup, Maldonado has 18 wins, four more than Pedroza, who had one winner. Pedroza has won the Fairplex riding title 13 straight years.
ELMONT, N.Y. – A pair of allowance races scheduled for the turf – one short and one long – are the co-features on Belmont Park’s nine-race card Friday.
The eighth is a $77,000, second-level allowance going seven furlongs and looks like a good spot for Sylvestris and trainer Robert Barbara to end droughts.
Sylvestris won a first-level allowance race going seven furlongs here May 11. She has lost her last four starts. Barbara has gone 0 for 45 since Adjournment won a race at Belmont on May 18.
