VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Dashing Daisy isn’t going to come close to repeating her very successful 2011 season, when she won six races, including the Delta Coleen and B.C. Cup Distaff. Nonetheless, she looks like the one they will have to beat when she runs in a $25,000 claiming race for fillies and mares at Hastings on Friday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Kerry Convent returns from a six-week break in Friday’s featured eighth race. There’s some speed in the five-furlong Ontario-sired allowance, and it could set up for the Steve Attard-trained runner if she fires one of her better shots.
Kerry Convent checked in third in her first two appearances at the meet, both in Ontario-sired nonwinners-of-two allowance company. She nearly notched her second win while dropping to $20,000 May 23, when she closed to finish a head back as the favorite.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – The ultra-consistent Devilish Silver has hit the board in her last 15 starts, all for trainer Bobby Dibona. She looks to extend that streak in a second-level optional $32,000 claimer, the Friday feature for fillies and mares on the last major weekend at Monmouth Park.
There will be stakes races Saturday through Monday as the core portion of the Monmouth season concludes. The Grade 3 Cliff Hanger on turf highlights the Saturday card, while 2-year-olds are showcased Sunday in the Grade 3 Sapling and the Sorority for fillies.
Ellis Park will open its new Instant Racing machines to the public on Friday, making the western Kentucky track the second in the state to offer the games as a means to increase revenues and purses.
Although Ellis owner Ron Geary did not return phone messages Tuesday or Wednesday, a spokesman for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, Dick Brown, confirmed that a ribbon-cutting ceremony was to be held Thursday, with the parlor opening to the public Friday.
Blazing Bling, the lone stakes winner in a field of seven, looks to continue her winning ways and capture her third win in a row in Friday’s 45th running of the $50,000, six-furlong, Miss Ohio Stakes for 2-year old Ohio-registered fillies at Thistledown.
Trainer Timothy Hamm will also send out Disappeared, who is part of a coupled entry with Blazing Bling for owners Blazing Meadows Farm and Langsem Farm, and Unique Indygo for owner Bruce Ryan.
Aquapazza could get the right kind of pace setup Friday night, when she seeks her second stakes win of the summer in the $50,000 Ricks Memorial at Remington Park. She will be invading from Kentucky for the one-mile turf race for fillies and mares that drew a field of 10.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Atlantic Hurricane was nominated to Saturday’s Seaway Stakes, a seven-furlong race here for fillies and mares that offers Grade 3 status and a purse of $150,000. But Stu Simon, trainer and a part-owner of Atlantic Hurricane, has elected to bypass the Seaway and head to Pennsylvania for the Presque Isle Masters, a 6 1/2-furlong filly and mare stakes Sept. 8.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Jimmy Creed, one of the most-promising late-developing 3-year-olds on this circuit, and Fed Biz, whose bid for the spring classics was short-circuited earlier this year, head a field of six 3-year-olds entered in the $100,000 El Cajon Stakes on Friday at Del Mar.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jockey Shane Sellers is scheduled to see a physician Friday in Louisville to seek clearance for his return to race riding after recovering from a fractured shoulder blade he sustained on the final weekend of racing at the Churchill Downs spring meet.
Sellers has been exercising horses at Churchill for the last week or so and said Wednesday he will not travel to Arlington Park as originally hoped. He said he most likely will make his return at Turfway Park, which starts its 16-day meet Sept. 6, or Kentucky Downs, which starts its six-day meet Sept. 8.
One allowance race, the fifth of nine, serves as the highlight of the Thursday program at Arlington Park. Gleam of Hope, dropping sharply in class for trainer Mike Stidham when in for a $40,000 claiming option, is the morning-line favorite among the 10 3-year-olds and upward in the lineup.
Other considerations in the $44,000, second-level allowance, which goes at 1 1/16 miles on the Poly, include Color Me Blue, Keep Up, Cool C Note, and Gallant Eagle.
