It's Me Mom led from start to finish to win the $100,000 Satin and Lace at Presque Isle Downs Tuesday evening.
Trained by Lynne Scace, the 4-year-old filly bobbled and bore out at the start and then dueled early. Jockey Willie Martinez hustled her along and she drew clear by two lengths at the half-mile pole in the 5 1/2- furlong event. Martinez asked It's Me Mom for her best in upper stretch and she responded, drawing off to win by 3 1/2 lengths.
MIAMI - Manny Cruz has no chance of overtaking defending champ Luis Saez to win a fifth Calder riding title considering he did not move his tack back here from Kentucky until two months into the current session. But Cruz does figure to go toe to toe with Saez during the remainder of the meet and give him all he can handle defending his crown when the Tropical at Calder meet begins in early September.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Dale Romans currently trains one of the most potent collections of stakes runners in North America. As he begins making preparations to take a large string to Saratoga for the meet that starts July 20, here are some plans:
Tapitsfly, winner of the Grade 1 Just A Game on the Belmont Stakes undercard, “might run in the Firecracker against the boys” on July 1, said Romans. “Or we might just wait for the Diana” on July 28 at Saratoga.
Warrior Maid is a stakes winner at two turns and capable on the grass, but she will be getting back to what she arguably does best Thursday when she returns to sprinting on the main track in the second race at Louisiana Downs.
The six-furlong allowance is for fillies and mares bred in Louisiana. The race is one of two high-end offerings on the card, which also includes an optional $25,000 claiming sprint for Louisiana-breds that drew stakes winners Tortuga Straits and Dreamsrunwild.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The temptation is to say that winning a second straight Debutante Stakes this coming Saturday at Churchill Downs would be the proverbial icing on the cake for Garry Simms. With a remarkable record of 5 wins and 2 seconds from just 8 starters so far at the spring meet, the 60-year-old Simms has done a lot with a little, with his most recent starter being a first-timing 2-year-old winner named Circle Unbroken here Sunday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Cory Wagner has gotten to know his California racing stable largely by staring at his television.
“I’ve only been in the winner’s circle in Southern California once in the flesh,” he said earlier this week. “I’d like to do it again.”
With business and family commitments in Edmonton, Wagner, 32, does not travel south as often as he would like. He is making an exception this weekend.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Amazombie, the champion sprinter of 2011, will make his next start in the $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar on July 29 and will miss the $250,000 Triple Bend Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park on June 30, trainer Bill Spawr said Tuesday.
Spawr said he would prefer not to start Amazombie against the multiple stakes winner The Factor, who has proven to be dangerous when allowed to set the pace. The Factor is a candidate for the Grade 1 Triple Bend, which is run over seven furlongs.
“No one will go with him,” Spawr said of The Factor.
MIAMI – For the second weekend in a row, a horse coming off a prolonged vacation and training on the farm in Ocala, Fla., became a local stakes winner and did so in impressive fashion.
On June 9, Field Commission not only captured the Ponche Handicap but set a stakes record in the process. Last Saturday, Becausei’mworthit returned from a six-month absence to dominate the Cool Air Stakes, a race switched from the turf to the main track because of several days of heavy rain.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The good sprinter Orientatious is easy to like when she returns Thursday from an 11-month layoff with fast works and the highest speed figures in the second-level allowance for fillies and mares.
But there are two sides to a story, sometimes more. Enter the skeptics.
Orientatious is easy to wager against Thursday. Unraced since July, she will not have worked in 15 days and trains on dirt at Santa Anita but will race on synthetic at Betfair Hollywood Park. Finally, 6 1/2 furlongs is beyond her established ability.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainers Roger Attfield and Mike Keogh, both separately and together, have been down the Queen’s Plate road many times.
Attfield has been represented by a total of 34 starters in 25 editions of the Queen’s Plate, beginning with his victory with Norcliffe in 1976. His eight Queen’s Plate victories put him in a tie for the lead with Harry Giddings Jr., whose winning years ranged from 1911 to 1942.
Keogh started working as an assistant to Attfield in 1986 before going out on his own as a private trainer for owner/breeder Gustav Schickedanz in 1993.
