Woodbine Entertainment has announced the addition of Sovereign Award-winning trainer Dan Vella as a horsepeople liaison.
Vella joins Woodbine after retiring from a training career that spanned several decades, during which he compiled over 800 wins and $39 million in earnings.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Gulfstream Park will host the first ever United States qualifying races for Royal Ascot on May 13, the $100,000 Royal Palm Juvenile and $100,000 Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies, both to be decided at five furlongs on the turf.
The winners of which will receive a $25,000 travel stipend and automatic entry into one of the six 2-year-old stakes offered during the 2023 Royal Ascot meet that runs from June 20-24.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Simon Crisford’s last Dubai World Cup came in 2013. For 20 years, Crisford had served as an adviser, spokesman, and racing manager for Godolphin. Godolphin’s architect was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. Crisford and trainer Saeed bin Suroor for most of those two decades were the operation’s public faces. Crisford stood front and center for five Godolphin World Cup wins, starting with the great Dubai Millennium in 2000.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With 27 winners from 97 mounts over the last 15 cards, Manny Franco has taken control of the jockey standings for Aqueduct’s winter meet. Going into the final three days of the session, Franco has a 61-53 lead over Dylan Davis, who has gone 19 for 102 over the same 15-day period.
Jose Lezcano, who has won 17 races from 61 mounts over the last 15 cards, is entrenched in third with 42 wins.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There’s been a lot of streaking going on at Aqueduct this winter.
Aside from the seven- and six-race win streaks put together recently by trainers Linda Rice and Rob Atras, respectively, several horses this winter have put together some impressive runs of their own.
The New York-bred stakes ranks, which have thinned out some, looks to have received an influx of talented runners this winter in the form of Today’s Flavor, Dr Ardito, Ouster, and Overstep, who have combined to win 15 of their last 16 starts.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita plans to race on Friday, April 21, as a makeup day for rain-related cancellations earlier this year, track officials said over the weekend.
The track did not have April 21 on its original calendar for the winter-spring meeting.
:: Get ready for Santa Anita racing with DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Accompanied by his family, Javier Castellano was honored with the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in a brief ceremony between races at Santa Anita on Sunday.
A member of racing’s Hall of Fame and a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding rider, from 2013 to 2016, Castellano was recognized with an award first introduced in 1950 to recognize career achievement and personal character. The award is based on a nationwide vote of jockeys.
“It’s truly an honor to be here,” Castellano said. “It’s an amazing award.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Princess Bettina’s stakes win at Santa Anita on Saturday came at a good time for veteran California trainer Peter Eurton.
A 3-year-old filly who races for owner and breeder Don Dizney, Princess Bettina led throughout the China Doll Stakes to give Eurton his first stakes win since last March at Sunland Park and his first stakes win at Santa Anita since Storm the Court won the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
“The stakes have been avoiding us,” Eurton said on Sunday. “We didn’t have the right horses.”
One of the standout horses at the Tampa meet has been Smart as Me, a 4-year-old colt who won again Saturday for co-owner and trainer Craig R. Smith. From six starts, Smart as Me has closed from far back to finish first four times (and was disqualified from one of those wins), with his latest victory coming in a first-level allowance going a mile on the turf.
