OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Gary Sciacca remembers feeding carrots to Forego when he was too young to even know the horse’s legend. Later in life, Sciacca got to train for and become friends with the likes of Bill Parcells and Bobby Flay. In 1996, Sciacca hung out at the Breeders’ Cup with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft.
“A lot of great memories,” Sciacca said. “The business has been super to me my whole life. I’m very fortunate and blessed to have had a great career.”
The 5-year-old horse Corporate Power came into Thursday’s seventh race at Fair Grounds with a recency edge over his Steve Asmussen-trained stablemate, Conquest Warrior, another 5-year-old.
Corporate Power had last raced in November 2024, finishing fifth in the Discovery Stakes at Aqueduct. Conquest Warrior, meanwhile, raced for the first time since checking in a distant fourth behind Fierceness in the 2024 Florida Derby.
The Risen Star Stakes this past Saturday at Fair Grounds came three days before Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday marked, for Catholics in New Orleans, the beginning of the solemn 40-day season of Lent. And at Fair Grounds, the 35 days separating the Risen Star and the Louisiana Derby might have been assumed also to mark a period of relatively quiet reflection. The 3-year-old colt Reagan’s Honor was not ready for the party to end.
Nysos earned a cool $3.5 million for his second-place finish to Forever Young in the $20 million Saudi Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last Saturday. Nysos's performance gave trainer Bob Baffert a year-end goal of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31.
“I’ll work back from there,” Baffert said on Thursday.
Before Shane’s Wonder made his debut at Parx Racing on Tuesday, Alfredo Velazquez received a stunning report from jockey Eliseo Ruiz after a morning workout. The trainer might have been prepared for a comparison to four-time stakes winner Buccherino, the undisputed star of his stable, but he was indignant when Ruiz went a step further describing the unraced colt.
“We knew he was a runner because [Ruiz] told me he’s a better horse than Buccherino,” Velazquez said. “I told him he had to be drinking or smoking or something.“
Jockey Angel Cruz has caught fire in the Mid-Atlantic, boasting a 19 percent strike rate at Laurel Park and Charles Town to begin his 2026 campaign. The pot got even sweeter in Maryland last Saturday, when the journeyman rider took center stage in the $200,000 General George and guided rising star Point Dume to a commanding gate-to-wire victory.
“He’s one of the best sprinters I’ve ridden in my career,” Cruz said. “I think he can go longer, but you could see in the last two races, he’s just improved so much.”
Trainer Michael Moore believes Takethemoneyhoney might have run the best race of her career in the $200,000 Barbara Fritchie on Saturday at Laurel. It hurt that she did so in defeat, coming up a nose short to Passage East in a thriller.
“Whatever number you want to look at, they all came back as the fastest race she’s ever run in her life, despite being beat,” Moore said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Balboa, third in the Grade 2 Remsen in December, and runner-up in the Jerome in January, will make a return visit to Aqueduct on Feb. 28 for the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes, trainer Brittany Russell said Wednesday.
Balboa is entered in Saturday’s Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel Park but will scratch.
Russell said a Thursday workout at Laurel still has to be gotten through but barring something unforeseen there, the Gotham is the plan for Balboa.
Hit Show eked out a victory Saturday over pacesetting Accelerize in the Mineshaft Stakes, his raw time of 1:42.49 for 1 1/16 miles producing a modest 92 Beyer Speed Figure. But the Mineshaft served as a mere means to an end, that being a return to the Dubai World Cup, which Hit Show upset in April.
Florent Geroux urged Hit Show out of the gate Saturday, and the horse raced much closer to the pace than usual, a tactical adjustment required by what many viewed as an inside-biased racing surface.
An untimely fever kept Magnitude from shipping to last weekend’s Saudi Cup, a change in schedule that keeps him following directly in the hoofprints of a famed predecessor.
Gun Runner, like Magnitude, was trained by Steve Asmussen for Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds. During his 3-year-old season, Gun Runner finished a distant third in the Travers, a much closer second in the Pennsylvania Derby, and capped his campaign beating older horses in the Clark Stakes.
