LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Tom Amoss might make quite a few folks happy Friday evening at Churchill Downs - or he might disappoint them, too. The veteran trainer has five scheduled starters in the final six races of the twilight Friday card (first post, 2:45 p.m. Eastern), and all of them look like they could win and thus figure to draw strong action.
While trainer Nick Zito won’t be participating in the Belmont Stakes, he will have a major player for Monday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park in Jackson Bend.
Jackson Bend is one of five Grade 1 winners pointing to the Met Mile, which is expected to draw a six-horse field when entries are taken and post positions assigned on Friday.
Jackson Bend is coming off a nose victory over Caleb’s Posse in last month’s Grade 1 Carter at seven furlongs. Caleb’s Posse is also pointing to the Met.
Both stakes races on Saturday’s program, the Grade 3, $150,000 Matron and the $125,000 Arlington Classic were drawn with appealing fields Wednedsay.
The Arlington Classic, the first leg in Arlington’s loosely linked Mid-America Triple for 3-year-old grass horses, drew 10 entrants headed by Silver Max, the Dale Romans-trained winner of the American Turf on Oaks Day at Churchill in his most recent start. Others of note in the race are Monastic, Sachem Spirit, Najjaar, and Hero of Order, who has lost twice since his monumental upset of the $1 million Louisiana Derby.
Bodemeister and Creative Cause, second and third behind I’ll Have Another in the Preakness Stakes, will pass the Belmont Stakes in New York on June 9 and will be on different career paths this summer.
Trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday that Bodemeister will be pointed to the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 29.
“He could use a breather,” Baffert said.
Owned by Zayat Stables, Bodemeister won the Arkansas Derby in April and was second in the Kentucky Derby.
The optimism that Shaun Hubbard, the new general manager of Ruidoso Downs, has for the New Mexico meet that opens Friday is backed up at the entry box. The track, which is home to the $2.4 million All American Futurity for Quarter Horses, will open its season with 25 trial races for the Grade 1, $600,000 Ruidoso Futurity. And on Saturday, champion Ochoa, who won last year’s All American, will launch his 3-year-old season in trials for the Grade 1, $697,207 Ruidoso Derby.
Nates Mineshaft is headed to the Grade 3, $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap on Monday after breezing for the race Wednesday at Churchill Downs. His trainer, Austin Smith, was working on travel arrangements for the horse the same morning. Nates Mineshaft, who won the Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap in April, has raced once since, finishing sixth in the Grade 2 Alysheba at Churchill Downs.
“He worked very well this morning,” Smith said Wednesday. “We’re trying to work out plane reservations. We’re going to make it there one way or another.”
AUBURN, Wash. – A two-day pick-five carryover of $21,055 is likely to attract a crowd of interested horseplayers when racing resumes Friday evening at Emerald Downs. The pick-five sequence – races 3 through 7 – begins shortly before 7 p.m. Pacific.
Barring scratches, a total of 43 horses will start in the five races, an average of 8.6 per race, and the great challenge for handicappers will be narrowing down the 42,240 possible outcomes into a manageable number. There are no standout singles in the sequence.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Nick Zito has sent out the last two winners of the Belmont Stakes that were run when a Triple Crown was on the line.
In 2004, it was Zito’s Birdstone who ran past the fan favorite Smarty Jones to deny him his bid for racing immortality. In 2008, it was Da’ Tara, who went gate to wire in a race in which Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown failed to finish, being pulled up around the far turn by jockey Kent Desormeaux.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Alternation, currently the top-rated horse in the weekly NTRA Thoroughbred Poll, came out of his game win last Friday in the Pimlico Special in good condition and will make his next start in the Stephen Foster Handicap on June 16 at Churchill Downs as long as he continues to train to his connections’ satisfaction, trainer Donnie Von Hemel said Wednesday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tahoe Lake and Simmard will be sticking with their specialty, the turf marathon, when returning to action Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Louisville Handicap, the first graded stakes at Churchill Downs since the May 5 Kentucky Derby.
Simmard, shipping in from Woodbine for trainer Roger Attfield, is likely to come favored in the 1 1/2-mile Louisville after finishing third at 4-1 in his last race, the Elkhorn Stakes on closing day at Keeneland. Tahoe Lake, locally based with Ken McPeek, was second at 15-1 in the Elkhorn.
