DEL MAR, Calif. - Speaking Scout, the winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar, will be based at Santa Anita in coming weeks and could make his next start at that track’s winter-spring meeting, which begins on Dec. 26.
Considering the way Speaking Scout has been campaigned this year, any venue with a turf course could be on the gelding’s agenda.
Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux has been reinstated to ride at Santa Anita and other tracks owned by 1/ST Racing, the company said in a brief statement released Friday.
Desormeaux, 52, resumed riding at Del Mar last month after serving a 60-day suspension issued by the California Horse Racing Board earlier this year regarding an altercation in 2021 at an RV park at Del Mar.
Desormeaux was banned from riding at tracks owned by 1/ST Racing following his arrest in his home state of Louisiana in January on charges of domestic abuse and battery.
Trainer Richard Baltas was suspended one year and fined $10,000 by a panel of three California stewards on Friday for violations related to the administration of raceday supplements at Santa Anita in April and May.
Baltas indicated Friday that he plans to appeal.
“I’m terribly disappointed,” Baltas said in a brief phone conversation. “We are going to appeal. The decision is the decision.”
The penalty takes effect Dec. 9 and continues through Dec. 8, 2023.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Grass racing returned to Gulfstream Park for the first time in nearly six months when Kahiko rallied to victory over the 2-1 favorite Fast as Flight in Friday’s featured ninth event, decided under allowance conditions over the newly renovated course rated good.
Kelly Von Hemel, a longtime trainer based in the Midwest, will begin serving a 15-day suspension on Dec. 9, the opening of the Oaklawn Park meet, after a horse he trained tested positive for a regulated anesthetic.
Miniconjou, a 3-year-old gelding, tested positive for mepivacaine after winning a May 6 starter-allowance race at Oaklawn. The horse was disqualified.
Santa Anita has increased purses for allowance races to record levels and raised the minimum purse for stakes to $100,000 for the track’s winter-spring meeting, which begins on Dec. 26.
Purses for allowance races have been increased $3,000. A first-condition allowance race was worth $69,000 at the 2021-2022 winter meeting, and will be worth $72,000 at the forthcoming meeting. The purse for a third-condition allowance race has been increased from $73,000 to $76,000.
Evin Roman, one of the leading jockeys in Northern California, has been sidelined with a wrist injury sustained in a spill on Nov. 18 that will keep him from riding until late December.
Roman was unseated from 7-5 favorite Top Hat Tigress when the 2-year-old filly clipped heels with a rival in early stretch. The injury did not require surgery, but Roman will wear a cast until mid-December, according to his agent, Leo Rodriguez.
A portion of the $75,000 purse of the Oak Tree Sprint at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif., on July 2 was recently redistributed after second-place finisher Ultimate Bango tested positive for Lasix.
Lasix, a diuretic, is not permitted for use in stakes at Pleasanton.
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The last time Pizza Bianca ran in a Grade 1 race in the United States she won the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar in November 2021.
The 2022 season has not been as fruitful.
In four starts this year, Pizza Bianca has one win – the Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico in May. She was later eighth in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Royal Ascot in England in June and fourth in the Grade 2 Sands Point Stakes at Aqueduct in mid-October after a four-month layoff.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Seven horses were entered Wednesday for Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct, but the ink was barely dry on the overnight when one had to scratch.
O Besos, most recently fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, will not be permitted to run after five horses tested positive for equine herpesvirus in a barn at Churchill Downs, according to Greg Foley, the trainer of O Besos. That barn, which had 14 horses in it, had been placed under quarantine on Tuesday.
