ELMONT, N.Y. - Officially, Aruna has made one start this year, a last-place finish in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland last month.
As far as trainer Graham Motion is concerned, the race doesn't exist.
"I feel like I have to put a line through it," said Motion, who said his 5-year-old mare was compromised by a pedestrian pace. "They ran 1-2-3-4-5-6 all the way around there."
Marketing Mix, who won the 1 1/4-mile Wonder Where Stakes in her first start on the turf here last year, breezed five furlongs in 1:00 at Arlington Park on Thursday morning and is slated to return to Woodbine for next Saturday’s Nassau Stakes.
The Nassau, a one-mile turf race for fillies and mares, offers Grade 2 status and a guaranteed purse of $300,000 plus $60,000 for Ontario-breds.
Court of the Realm began his 2011 campaign with a bang but was a disappointment in the closing stages.
On Sunday, trainer Peter Berringer is hoping that Court of the Realm can reprise that early-season form when he makes his seasonal bow in the Grade 2, $150,000 Connaught Cup over seven furlongs of turf.
“He’s training good,” said Berringer. “I went easy with him early. We wanted to make sure he was okay. This is the goal, and he’s made it here.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – Street Game returns to his favorite turf course and drops back into New York-bred company when he runs in Sunday’s $125,000 Kingston Stakes scheduled for one mile over Belmont Park’s Widener turf course.
Street Game, last year’s champion 3-year-old New York-bred, won three races in six weeks at Belmont last spring, including a 7 1/4-length victory in the Grade 3 Hill Prince. Before that, he had won two races against statebreds.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Chris Block enjoyed a highly successful run here at Woodbine last year with Never Retreat, who captured the Grade 2 Canadian and Grade 2 Dance Smartly and went on to be voted Canada’s champion female turf horse and Horse of the Year.
Never Retreat is retired, and in foal to Kitten’s Joy, but Block will be represented by his first starter at the meeting when Mister Marti Gras runs in Saturday’s Grade 3 Eclipse at 1 1/16 miles on the main track.
At 30, Dan Blacker is a rookie trainer, trying to gain a foothold on the competitive Southern California circuit.
He has six horses based at Hollywood Park, not as many as he would like, which has led him to work at times for trainer John Shirreffs as an exercise rider in recent months.
That may not last much longer. Blacker expects more horses in coming weeks, and could attract the right kind of attention if the outsider Barney Rebel runs well in Saturday’s $150,000 American Handicap.
Something has to give when Bach’s Homebrew and Reach One More face off in the $20,000-added Big Red Mile for older Nebraska-breds going a mile at Lincoln Race Course on Saturday afternoon. The race drew only five entrants, but those two should put on quite a show to open the holiday weekend.
Catlaunch’s two races this year have been out of character for the Ohio-bred millionaire, and he will look to rebound in Saturday’s $50,000 Michael F. Rowland Memorial Handicap.
Age may be catching up to the 11-year-old, who has won this six-furlong race five times since 2006, with his only loss coming in 2009 when he finished third, beaten a length by Left On Base. Catlaunch, the 2011 Ohio horse of the year, will need a top effort to win the Rowland. He faces Raise the Reward, who has beaten him in both of his 2012 starts.
At the Fair Hill training center in Maryland, Union Rags worked five furlongs in 1:01 over a fast dirt track, according to trainer Michael Matz. Union Rags worked by himself under exercise rider Peter Brette.
“He went real nice, galloped out real good and strong, came back, and cooled out real well,” Matz said.
Matz said he likens Fair Hill’s dirt surface to Belmont’s main track.
“It’s more sandy than clay,” Matz said. “I think these two tracks are similar.”
