Retired Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye will be honored with a stakes race in his name at the Santa Anita autumn meeting, the track announced on Thursday.
The $100,000 Eddie D Stakes will be run over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course on Sept. 28, the opening day of the meeting.
“This is a great honor,” Delahoussaye said in a statement released by Santa Anita. “I won a lot of races coming down the hill, but I never thought they’d name a race for me.”
Trainer Joyce Salisbury has a chance to sweep the two best races on the card Saturday at Lone Star Park. She has the potential favorites in both the featured ninth race, a first-level allowance at a mile on turf in which she will saddle C’Em Blazin, and the fifth, an optional $30,000 claimer for fillies and mares at five furlongs on turf for which she has Wheeling Wini.
I’m Kiddin will try to make it two in a row when she faces six other 3-year-old Ohio-accredited fillies in the $50,000 Cincinnatian, a 1 1/16-mile turf race at River Downs.
Trained by Kathy Lowry, I’m Kiddin drew off to win an entry-level statebred allowance May 27 going six furlongs by nearly nine lengths. It was the first win of the year in three attempts for I’m Kiddin.
Watching it play out from afar, trainer Larry Jones was incredulous by some of the decisions made by New York racing regulators as it pertained to the Belmont Stakes.
So much so, that Jones decided to turn down the 11 stalls he was granted by the New York Racing Association for the upcoming Saratoga meet and participate only on a ship-in basis.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Bill Mott has the enviable task of trying to keep separated a bevy of talented horses in the handicap division.
Not only must he conceive a plan for Stephen Foster winner Ron the Greek and Fleur de Lis winner Royal Delta, Mott has to figure out how best to manage graded stakes winners To Honor and Serve and Flat Out.
To Honor and Serve and Flat Out will be nominated to the Grade 2, $350,000 Suburban on July 7, but Mott indicated Thursday that To Honor and Serve is the more likely of the two to run.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Zazu, the winner of three graded stakes in 2011, is out of training until later this summer after a nuclear scan test taken earlier this week showed stress on a tibia, trainer John Sadler said on Thursday.
Zazu was entered for the Grade 1 Vanity Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park on June 16, but did not start after she was reported to be “off behind” in the days before the race.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – The German-bred Destiny’s Child had shipping issues on the way to her U.S. debut Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Boiling Springs Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on the turf at Monmouth Park.
She spiked a temperature on arrival last weekend at the quarantine station in Newburgh, N.Y.
“She had a temperature of 102 or 103,” said Barry Irwin, head of the Team Valor International ownership group. “It’s the first horse we’ve shipped since the early ’90s that arrived with a temperature like that.”
The $134,957 Mountain Top at Ruidoso Downs on Saturday is an equal opportunity futurity. The field of 10 qualifiers for the five-furlong race for New Mexico-breds includes three capable fillies, Lakehouse Fun, Marthas Princess, and Backseat Roll.
Among the top colts and geldings in the race are Kiss My Hennessy, winner of the $120,000 Copper Top Futurity at Sunland Park in April; Indication N M, a winner of 3 of 4 starts; and Roll D’ Nile, who romped by five lengths in his June 8 trial for the Mountain Top.
ELMONT, N.Y. – They are clearly the two best horses in the field. They have similar running styles, and they will be lined up right next to each other in the starting gate.
So, from start to finish it figures to be quite a duel when Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can and Acorn winner Contested square off against each other in Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Mother Goose Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Belmont Park.
