Live racing returns to Maryland for the first time since Preakness Day with the opening of historic Timonium at the Maryland State Fair on Friday.
Timonium, which held its first meet in 1887 and is now the lone fair east of the Mississippi River to conduct Thoroughbred racing, will hold a seven-day meet spanning Friday through Sunday this weekend and Friday, Aug. 31, through Labor Day.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Man Stuff didn’t enjoy running off the lead in the Duchess Stakes, and she figures to rebound as the lone speed in Friday’s Woodbine headliner, a third-level optional claimer over seven furlongs.
Man Stuff, a 3-year-old trained by Nick Gonzalez, won her first two outings on the front end in the spring before ending up a close third in the Alywow Stakes on the grass.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Stormin for Becka, an impressive debut winner for trainer Craig MacPherson, should be tough to handle in the colts and geldings division of the $50,000 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Sales Stakes at Hastings on Friday. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint drew 10 horses and headlines the eight-race car, which begins at 3:20 p.m. Pacific.
Bamboo Dream heads the fillies division, which attracted six horses and goes as the third race.
Golden Stripe, a beaten choice in the open Winnipeg Sun last time out, will be heavily backed to make amends as she faces fellow Manitoba-bred fillies and mares in Friday’s $50,000 Distaff at Assiniboia Downs.
The one-mile Distaff is the first leg of a stakes tripleheader completed by the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Sale Stake and the Debutante.
The Sales Stake, worth $40,000, is a six-furlong race for 2-year-old graduates of the local CTHS yearling sale.
The $30,000 Debutante, also at six furlongs, is an open race for 2-year-old fillies.
Country Button and Sharp as Ever look like the main players in the $38,000 Esquirol Farms Sales Stakes at Northlands Park on Friday. The six-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds drew eight horses and goes as race 8 on the nine-race card, which begins at 6 p.m. Mountain.
To be eligible for the race, horses must have gone through the Esquirol Farms summer yearling and guests sale last year. The sale will not be held this year.
Hay Jude ended a 30-race career for trainer Tom Swearingen with a last-place finish in a $7,500 claiming race at Arlington Park in June 2002. Swearingen, a mainstay of the Illinois racing circuit, already had enough broodmares on his South Elgin, Ill., farm, and all he wanted was for Hay Jude “to have a real good home.”
Carlo Vaccarezza, a friend of Swearingen’s business partner, Pat Greco, “would come out to the farm sometimes, and he took a liking to the mare,” said Swearingen. “So we gave him the mare.”
The most unusual race of the Northern California fair circuit will conclude the Humboldt County Fair at Ferndale on Sunday.
The C.J. Hindley Humboldt County Marathon is a 1 5/8-mile race that is always the fair’s final race on closing day. Horses pass the finish line four times during the race on the half-mile track.
Gunnar Froines, the longtime announcer at Ferndale, explained that jockeys supposedly would start the race with four marbles in their mouths and spit one out each time they passed the finish line in an effort to keep track of how many laps they had ridden.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In keeping with the theme of the summer in the 3-year-old division, the focal point of Wednesday’s post position draw for Saturday’s Grade 1 Travers Stakes was more about who was not in the race than who is running.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Hansen, last year’s 2-year-old champion, became the latest casualty in the 3-year-old division Wednesday when it was discovered that he has a partial tear of the tendon in his left foreleg. The injury not only prevented him from making Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga, it most likely will lead to his retirement.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher sent out his two prospective starters for the Grade 2 Hopeful, Shanghai Bobby and Palace Malice, to work distinctly different half-miles here on Tuesday.
Shanghai Bobby was the first of the pair to breeze, completing four furlongs in an easy 50.09 seconds at 6:30 a.m. Palace Malice came out more than two hours later, following the renovation break, and went the same distance in a crisper 47.26 in company with stablemate Overanalyze, galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.29 before pulling up three-quarters of a mile in 1:14.61.
