Bourbon Courage proved to be a mighty quick horse in sprints this spring at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, where he won the first two starts of his career with triple-digit Beyer Figures. Saturday, he will be looking to get his first victory at two turns in the Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby.
DEL MAR, Calif. – After Halo Dolly was defeated in the Osunitas Stakes the first weekend of the meet here at Del Mar, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer let it be known to jockey Joe Talamo and his agent, Scotty McClellan, that he was none too pleased with the ride. But Hollendorfer kept Talamo on the filly, and that proved beneficial, because Halo Dolly won two stakes in subsequent weeks, including a breakthrough victory on Monday in the Grade 2 Yellow Ribbon Handicap.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Twice Marketing Mix has raced in Grade 1 competition, and twice she has run well without winning. Last fall at Keeneland, it was a fine runner-up finish behind the Irish invader Together in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, and last month at Arlington it was a head loss to the English shipper I’m A Dreamer in the Beverly D. Clearly, Marketing Mix is good enough to put a win at the highest level on her résumé , and her connections have now sent her west in an effort to accomplish that goal.
Bryan Schultz, 43, has been named the new track superintendent for Delta Downs in Vinton, La. The track opens its Thoroughbred meet on Oct. 19.
Schultz is a former assistant track superintendent for Lone Star Park near Dallas. He also worked in track maintenance at the shuttered Trinity Meadows near Ft. Worth, Texas.
Turfway Park opens a 16-day fall meet Thursday evening amid perhaps the most trying of circumstances in the 53-year history of the northern Kentucky track, with no stakes on the schedule and a worsening plight in the fight for gambling dollars.
With its closest neighboring state, Ohio, ready to join Indiana in bringing casinos to the competitive landscape, Turfway is in a bare-bones survival mode. After reviving its once-proud Kentucky Cup series last fall following a one-year hiatus, Turfway officials announced last month that no stakes at all will be run this fall.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The meet didn’t start off very well for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, but he’s finishing with a flourish. On Monday at Del Mar, Hollendorfer ran one-two in the Grade 2, $250,000 Yellow Ribbon Handicap for older female turf horses, as Halo Dolly earned her first graded stakes win at the expense of stablemate City to City.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Herbie D. was sent off as a prohibitive favorite in the $50,000 Derby Bar and Grill Express at Hastings on Monday and he didn’t disappoint as he cruised to an easy 2 3/4-length win over Stormy Canuck. He paid $2.60 for his dominating win in the six-furlong race for 3-year-olds and up.
One Dashing Eagle regained his status as the nation’s top-ranked 2-year-old Quarter Horse on Monday, when he rolled to a three-quarter length win over Sudden Thoughts in the Grade 1, $2.4 million All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs. Pj Chick in Black, who had supplanted One Dashing Eagle off a stellar trial effort, finished a troubled sixth as the 3-5 favorite.
The All American is the richest race offered for Quarter Horses, and it closed out the meet at Ruidoso. The New Mexico track on Monday drew a record crowd of 24,106.
Final Count went first-to-last Monday to register a 4 1/4-length triumph in the $50,000 Cliff Guilliams Memorial, the closing-day feature of the 29-day Ellis Park meet in Henderson, Ky.
With jockey Corey Lanerie biding his time early, Final Count finished with a flourish, returning $7.20 as third choice in a field reduced to just six starters after the race was moved from the main track to the turf, with the distance revised from 1 1/16 miles to a mile. The winning time was 1:37.46 over a muddy track.
