DEL MAR, Calif. – The calendar says summer began three weeks ago. But loyal fans of California racing know otherwise. Seasons do not change by month of the year. Seasons change according to where horses are running.
Winter always starts at Santa Anita, and spring always begins at Hollywood Park. As for summer, that starts at Del Mar on Wednesday at 2 p.m. when a raucous crowd of more than 40,000 fans cheer maiden claimers in the opening race of the 2012 summer meet.
The signature race of the Keeneland fall meet, the Shadwell Turf Mile, has had its purse increased to $750,000, officials with the Lexington, Ky., track announced Monday. The 17-day meet that will begin Oct. 5.
The Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile had been a $600,000 race until getting the bump for this coming fall, bringing it even with the longstanding spring highlight at Keeneland, the $750,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Casse had faith in Dixie Strike, and his judgment was rewarded at Fort Erie on Sunday when the filly recorded the biggest win of her career in the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes.
Dixie Strike had been keeping a busy schedule, making her seventh start of the season and racing on three weeks’ rest for the third straight time after winning the May 13 Selene, finishing a disappointing fifth in the June 3 Woodbine Oaks, and then ending a closing third in the 1 1/4-mile Queen’s Plate on June 24.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Royal Delta and Ron the Greek, two of trainer Bill Mott’s stars, put in workouts Sunday morning over Belmont’s main track.
Royal Delta, preparing for this Saturday’s $750,000 Delaware Handicap, was credited with a five-furlong time of 1:00.29 for a breeze that began at the half-mile pole.
Royal Delta actually shaded 47 seconds to the wire in a quick drill.
“She went maybe quicker than we wanted but she was doing it effortlessly,” Mott said.
Mott said Royal Delta would ship to Delaware the morning of the race.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Apprentice jockey Jose Ortiz will miss an unspecified amount of time with a bruised lung as a result of a spill he was involved in during the running of Sunday’s eighth race at Belmont Park.
Ortiz, a five-pound apprentice, had no other internal injuries, according to the New York Racing Association.
“We won’t rush into anything,” Mike Gonzalez, the agent for Ortiz, told NYRA. “We will find out more from the doctors and go from there.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Ralph Biamonte didn’t have much to cheer about at Fort Erie on Sunday, as he sent out Menlo’s Castle and Run in Aruba to finish seventh and eighth in the Prince of Wales Stakes.
But Biamonte was was glued to one of the television sets there earlier Sunday afternoon and had occasion to celebrate as he watched Cryptic Message, saddled by his assistant, Rocco de Luca, lead throughout Woodbine’s $150,800 Shady Well Stakes under regular rider Emma-Jayne Wilson.
Suffolk Downs has canceled the live racing program scheduled for Tuesday due to a forecast that calls for extreme heat and humidity. The track will also be closed for simulcasting on Tuesday.
Live racing and simulcasting are scheduled to resume on Wednesday. First post time is 12:45 p.m.
Kyle Frey, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey in 2011, will miss a minimum of six months and could be out a year as a result of broken right leg suffered in a spill Saturday at Parx Racing.
Frey was aboard Holy Bear who was vying for the lead turning for home when he fell in the stretch of Saturday’s seventh race at Parx. Holy Bear suffered fatal injuries to his left foreleg and had to be euthanized.
According Frey’s agent, Mark North, Frey underwent surgery Saturday night at a Philadelphia-area hospital, where he had a rod and four screws inserted into the leg.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Trainer Troy Taylor, owner Glen Todd, and jockey Fernando Perez teamed up to win their sixth stakes race in a row at Hastings with Caged Mistress in the $50,000 Strawberry Morn on Sunday. She paid $8.10 for her nose win over Wando Woman in the 1 1/16-mile feature for fillies and mares.
