The year’s second two-furlong race for 2-year-olds at Golden Gate is scheduled for Thursday.Two fillies who ran behind Case Cracker in her track-record two-furlong win in the first such race of the meeting are back on Thursday: Egyptian Femme, who ran fifth, and Mysweetguarani, a distant sixth. Thursday’s race, which is for fillies, has four first-timers, including Smackable, a stablemate of Egyptian Femme.
Trainer Craig Dollase got exactly what he wanted when he sent his multi-millionaire Awesome Gem to Golden Gate Fields for his 9-year-old debut last week. Awesome Gem won the one-mile allowance race, which was switched from turf to Tapeta, and came out of the race in good shape.
“He doesn’t know he’s 9,” said Dollase after Awesome Gem’s half-length victory last Tursday over pacesetter Positive Response. “It was a nice comeback.”
A partnership that is building two casinos in Ohio has purchased an additional 40 percent stake in Turfway Park, bringing its total stake in the northern Kentucky track to 90 percent.
Rock Ohio Ventures, a partnership that includes Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, purchased the 40 percent stake for $6.2 million from Keeneland, which will retain a 10 percent share of the track. The stake purchased by Rock Ohio will be merged with a 50 percent stake in Turfway already owned by Rock Ohio Caesars, which is co-developing the two Ohio casinos with Rock Ohio Ventures.
Jockey Akifumi Kato notched career Thoroughbred winner 2,000 at Turf Paradise Monday when he guided She’s a Hit ($6) to capture the day’s eighth race. The 3-year-old filly, owned by Arrowhead Racing and trained by Kaylyn Kato, sat midpack in the about 7 1/2-furlong turf event, a $30,000 maiden claimer, began to advance on the far turn, swung very wide into the lane and kept on resolutely to get up in the final strides as the 2-1 favorite.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Jockey Matthew Straight was recovering Monday from a shoulder fracture sustained Sunday at Keeneland after being thrown from his mount, 107-1 shot Maid On a Mission, during the fifth race. The 26-year-old jockey was still hospitalized at the University of Kentucky Medical Center as of Monday morning but otherwise is fine, according to Keeneland medical personnel.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The Lumber Guy couldn’t hack it in the nine-furlong Wood Memorial on April 7, finishing fifth, beaten 6 1/4 lengths by Gemologist. Perhaps he will find cutting back to a one-turn mile more to his liking when he wheels back in two weeks to run in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Jerome Stakes.
While trainer Mike Hushion said the timing of the race isn’t ideal, the dimensions of the race are.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said Moinday that It’s Tricky, winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Distaff Handicap, will make her next start in the Grade 1 Odgen Phipps at Belmont on May 28.
Though It’s Tricky won the Distaff by 3 1/2 lengths, there were some anxious moments when jockey Eddie Castro resorted to the whip leaving the three-eighths pole. [bc_video_id:249020:]
STICKNEY, Ill. – There are all sorts of little issues to ponder when handicapping the featured seventh race on Wednesday at Hawthorne, a second-level, two-turn dirt allowance race also open to $35,000 claimers. In fact, while the race looks decent for Chicago in April, a skeptical eye can be cast on all seven entrants.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There were 451 horses claimed during Aqueduct’s inner-track meet and another 94 have been haltered since the main track opened on March 21.
The poster child for all this activity might be Full of Gut, who has been claimed in each of her last four starts and seven times in her career. Why so popular? Perhaps her record of 12 wins from 27 career starts has something to do with it.
