AUBURN, Wash. – Preparations for the Longacres Mile will heat up Saturday at Emerald Downs when four horses with designs on the Northwest’s signature race meet in a $21,000 allowance sprint at 6 1/2 furlongs. Assessment, hero of the 2009 Longacres Mile, headlines a field that also includes stakes winners Jebrica, Saratoga Boot, Posse Power, and Goggles McCoy.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Tapitsfly found herself loose on the lead over a speed-favoring course at Belmont Park on June 9 and took advantage of that scenario to register her first Grade 1 victory with a wire-to-wire win over Winter Memories and Hungry Island in the Just a Game. The question is, will a similar scenario develop when the same trio, along with defending champion Zagora and a pair of intriguing European invaders, assemble Saturday at Saratoga for the Grade 1 Diana.
The rapidly improving Jetblack Gold Moment will be chasing her third straight win Saturday, when she starts as the fastest-qualifier in the $400,000 Texas Quarter Horse Association Sales Futurity at Retama Park near San Antonio. She is one of four capable fillies in the futurity, a restricted Grade 2 race that drew a field of 10.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Suggestive Boy could run in the $1 million Pacific Classic on Aug. 26 after his victory in Wednesday’s Wickerr Stakes on turf at Del Mar, trainer Ron McAnally hinted on Thursday.
McAnally, who won the 2003 Pacific Classic with Candy Ride, said he would like to work Suggestive Boy and Interaction, the runner-up in the Grade 1 Eddie Read Stakes on turf here July 21, on the Polytrack synthetic surface here to see how they perform. The Pacific Classic is run over 1 1/4 miles on the synthetic track.
Hannahslittleangel should be a slight favorite when she takes on six other 3-year-old fillies in the $10,000-added Inaugural Stakes, a six-furlong race that opens the stakes schedule at Columbus’ Ag Park on Saturday.
Hannahslittleangel won the Princess Stakes at Lincoln Race Course on May 12 and faced much tougher older fillies and mares in optional claiming company in her two starts since, finishing fifth and fourth.
Foreign Girl flashed talent last year, when she won her debut by nine lengths and then captured a division of the $100,000 Louisiana Stallion Stakes. Her third start comes Saturday, when she returns from a 10-month layoff in the fifth race at Louisiana Downs, a six-furlong optional $17,500 claimer that has second-level allowance conditions.
Foreign Girl’s task will not be easy. She is part of a competitive field of seven fillies and mares, led by Street Storm, a stakes winner who was eighth in the 2011 Kentucky Oaks, and Naevus Girl, a sharp older mare moving back to dirt.
Delaunay will attempt to win his second consecutive stakes when he runs in the $60,000 Stonewall Farm Ocala Hockessin at Delaware Park on Saturday afternoon. The Hockessin has a field of nine, including an entry.
A 5-year-old gelding trained by Tom Amoss, Delaunay earned a career-best 97 Beyer when he won the Kelly’s Landing at Churchill on June 23. Before that he won a 40,000 claiming event at Churchill on May 12, a race from which Amoss claimed Delaunay.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In a perfect world, trainer Michael Matz would be taking Union Rags to Monmouth Park for Sunday’s $1 million Haskell while pointing Teeth of the Dog to next weekend’s $750,000 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer.
In the imperfect world that is horse racing, Matz has had to make a different plan.
A suspensory injury has prematurely ended the career of Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags, prompting Matz and owner Jose Singer to run Teeth of the Dog in Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga.
Grand Traverse is showing few signs of aging, as evidenced by the way the 9-year-old gelding ran off to a 3 1/4-length victory in an allowance race at Indiana Downs last month, earning a 94 Beyer Speed Figure.
“He’s been an amazing horse,” said Lori Hebel-Osborne, who heads the Mimicry Partnership that has owned Grand Traverse throughout his 54-race career. “He really does love his job.”
