AUBURN, Wash. – While it’s not the feature race, and the purse is just $4,600, the first race at Emerald Downs on Friday night could be the most entertaining race on the card. An eclectic group of six $7,500 claimers – three Thoroughbreds, three Quarter Horses – will compete over 870 yards, the first such race of the meeting and just the fifth race for Quarter Horses this summer as Emerald winds toward the end of its 81-day meeting Sept. 23.
The $50,000 Remington Park Turf Sprint for Oklahoma-breds on Friday night is a simple read: Conkigo is the speed of the race. He established himself as such with a front-running win in the $49,000 allowance prep for the five-furlong stakes Aug. 24. It came one start after Conkigo wired open-company rivals in an optional $20,000 claiming sprint at Will Rogers Downs.
“He is best going to the front,” said Martin Lozano, who trains Conkigo for Gary Owens.
POMONA, Calif. – A buying spree at the inaugural Del Mar paddock sale in late July produced two big winners already for trainer Jeff Bonde.
Perhaps the best is yet to come.
Fightin Mean Mad, the $200,000 sale-topper, makes her first start for Bonde and owner Jerry Durant in the Phil D. Shepherd Stakes for 2-year-old fillies Friday at Fairplex Park. The $50,000 stakes is hers for the taking.
“We paid a lot of money for her, and hope she can do something special,” Bonde said.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Though Sunny Desert has won her last two starts sprinting, trainer John Parisella has always felt the 3-year-old filly is better going a route of ground.
Friday, Sunny Desert gets the chance to stretch out to a mile for the first time since winning a maiden race at Aqueduct by 15 1/4 lengths in March when she runs in the $85,000 Judy Soda Stakes at Belmont Park.
Sunny Desert, a daughter of Wild Desert, takes on seven rivals in the Judy Soda, carded as the fifth of nine races here on Friday.
MIAMI – Reigning Filly and Mare Sprint champion Musical Romance, idle since capturing the Grade 1 Princess Rooney Handicap over her home course at Calder on July 9, will make her next start a week from Saturday in Belmont Park’s Grade 2 Gallant Bloom.
Trainer Bill Kaplan, who also owns a half-interest in Musical Romance, said the decision to send Musical Romance to the 6 1/2-furlong Gallant Bloom came shortly after she worked five furlongs in 1:00.28 and galloped out six furlongs in 1:14.24 under regular rider Juan Leyva Wednesday morning at Calder.
Miss Victoriana, who is based at Northlands Park, won just one race in each of her 2010 and 2011 campaigns.
Those two victories came in the Matron, the top race for fillies and mares at the Assiniboia Downs meeting, and Miss Victoriana will be looking for the three-peat and her first win this season in Friday’s renewal of the 1 1/8-mile race worth $50,000.
The Matron attracted a field of 10 and will go as the seventh of eight races on a program which also includes the $50,000 J.W. Sifton for Manitoba-foaled 3-year-old colts and geldings.
The momentum of a solid meet at Kentucky Downs figures to be sustained Saturday when four stakes, led by the Grade 3 Kentucky Turf Cup, anchor a 10-race card.
Rahystrada, the defending champion in the $200,000 Turf Cup, will be the favorite in a field of eight older horses in the 1 1/2-mile showcase event at the turf-only track in south-central Kentucky. His main opposition could come from Chicago shipper Ioya Bigtime, whose last two races at his home track, Arlington Park, have been terrific.
Ochoa’s first start since becoming Quarter Horse racing’s all-time earnings leader is scheduled to compete during the Lone Star Park meet that opens on Friday night. Trainer Sleepy Gilbreath said the horse is being pointed toward the Oct. 19 trials for the Grade 1, $400,000 Texas Classic Derby, a 440-yard race that closes out the meet Nov. 10.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario — Hunters Bay will be looking to earn a distinctive spot in Woodbine Mile history here Sunday when he becomes the first horse to attempt to win the Grade 1, $1 million feature without a previous start on turf.
On Wednesday, Hunters Bay felt a turf course under his hooves for the first time when he galloped the 1 1/2-mile length of the E.P. Taylor layout under exercise rider Martine Pare.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Carolyn Costigan burst onto the scene here by winning the 2009 Princess Elizabeth with Roan Inish, her first official starter, and sending out that filly to win the following year’s Woodbine Oaks and to finish third in the Queen’s Plate.
While Costigan has kept a relatively low profile in the interim, that situation could change dramatically when she sends out Nancy O for Saturday’s Natalma Stakes.
The Natalma, for 2-year-old fillies, shares top billing on Saturday’s card with the Summer Stakes for 2-year-olds.
