INGLEWOOD, Calif. - A perfect trip gave Warren’s Jitterbug an upset win, and the richest victory of her career, in Saturday’s $125,000 B. Thoughtful Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park.
Sent off as the longest shot in a field of seven California-bred fillies and mares, Warren’s Jitterbug ($25) closed from fifth to win by a half-length over Going for a Spin.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Hunters Bay ($3.20) blew away a good field of third-level allowance/optional claiming runners in the featured eighth race at Woodbine Saturday.
Hunters Bay bided his time in third on the backstretch under Emma Wilson, while 2010 Queen’s Plate winner Big Red Mike set a slow pace in the seven-furlong sprint. Say No More overtook Big Red Mike inside the quarter pole before getting passed by the wide-closing Hunters Bay, who drew off with long strides to prevail by four lengths over 20-1 outsider Alpha Bettor.
Alpha, the Wood Memorial runner-up, passed a significant hurdle Saturday in his bid to make the Kentucky Derby by working a sharp five furlongs at Belmont Park and, more importantly, coming out of it in good shape.
Without Acclamation, Utopian won his first stakes in the $98,000 Inglewood Handicap, outfinishing pacesetter Smug by a head in the race over 1 1/8 miles on turf.
Ridden by Mike Smith, Utopian ($6.80) was second until early stretch when he moved within a length of Smug, who set an early pace of 25.75 and 50.23 seconds. Utopian was timed in 1:48.73.
“They were going really slow and I knew it would turn into a sprint for home,” Smith said. Smug finished 1 1/2 lengths in front of 3-5 favorite Holladay Road, who was well clear of Haimish Hy in the four-horse field.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Ron Moquett pulled one of the biggest upsets in Churchill Downs history when he sent out Seek Gold to win the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap in 2006 at 91-1. Amie’s Dini won’t be such a monster price when Moquett saddles her Friday for the 138th Kentucky Oaks at Churchill, but Moquett would like to shock a few people nonetheless.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Why mess with success? Graham Motion and Michael Matz both have won the Kentucky Derby, Motion last year, Matz in 2006, and they are back this year at Churchill Downs with runners whose final works on Saturday were almost carbon copies of what the trainers did with their Derby winners.
A day after being withdrawn from the Grade 3 Inglewood Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park over concern about his soundness, Acclamation resumed light training at Santa Anita on Saturday, trainer Don Warren said.
The champion older male of 2011, Acclamation was scheduled to make his first start of the year in the Inglewood on Friday evening, but was withdrawn on the afternoon of the race.
For the past six months, the mare Pretty Cozzy has been bouncing back and forth between the barns of Chris Englehart and Dominic Galluscio. Claimed three times beween Oct. 19 and Feb. 10, the 6-year-old will seek her first win since she was reclaimed by Galluscio for $16,000 in Monday’s seventh race at Finger Lakes.
Pretty Cozzy is among three of the seven fillies and mares in the 4 1/2-furlong sprint entered under the second-level allowance conditions of the race rather than the optional $12,500 claiming tag.
True to Tradition, a Grade 2 stakes winner during a long career which has seen him win 13 races and $842,225, will try to prove his gas tank hasn’t hit empty when he returns from a three-month layoff Tuesday in a 5 1/2-furlong sprint for horses who have started for a claiming price of $12,500 or less since 2010 in the finale of a six-race, all-turf card at Atlantic City.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This week last year, Eddie Kenneally was busy talking about Santiva, the first Kentucky Derby starter of his training career, but no such business occupies him this week. The memory of Santiva running sixth in the 2011 Derby is a faded one, especially since the colt has yet to win a race since being pulled from Kenneally’s care following a distant eighth-place finish in the Belmont Stakes.
