ARCADIA, Calif. – An altered training schedule worked successfully for Creative Cause in March, and has led trainer Mike Harrington to try to replicate that schedule in advance of Saturday’s $750,000 Santa Anita Derby.
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Moonlight Song, a late-blooming gelding unveiled for two promising wins on the inner track, looks to stay perfect against six rivals in Thursday’s fifth race, a one-mile New York-bred allowance with a $25,000 claiming option.
Moonlight Song is a homebred half-brother to Giant Moon, a six-time stakes winner for owner-breeder Albert Fried including the Grade 3 Excelsior at Aqueduct in 2009.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The pick six Thursday at Santa Anita is keyed around trainer Marty Jones, whose second-time starters Starry Skies in race 3 and Unbridled Ambition race 5 appear formidable on a good weekday card.
Starry Skies scored a powerful debut victory March 2 and is the likely allowance-race favorite. Unbridled Ambition finished a promising second in her debut on the same day and will be heavily backed in a maiden race for California-bred fillies and mares.
Keeneland Race Course opens its 15-day spring meet Friday not only with the Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes for 3-year-olds, but also several rich allowance races, including one to mark the long-awaited return of the top older horse Successful Dan.
The $100,000 Transylvania, run at a mile on turf, anchors a 10-race opening-day card for which entries were drawn Tuesday at the Lexington, Ky., track. State of Play, with John Velazquez to ride for Team Valor International and trainer Graham Motion, was assigned post 1 as perhaps a slight favorite in a field of seven.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Horse of the Year is in the house.
Havre de Grace arrived at Oaklawn Park from Fair Grounds on Monday afternoon and is scheduled to breeze here Saturday, trainer Larry Jones said. She is being considered for a start in the Grade 1, $500,000 Apple Blossom Handicap on April 13, with a final decision on her status to come after the weights for the race are released Saturday.
“We are waiting to see what the weights will be,” said Jones, whose main focus will be the spread in weights.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Brother Francis was a colt in need of an identity last weekend, as the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby on Saturday drew closer.
Last Sunday morning, a trackside conversation between trainer Jim Cassidy and a few of his colleagues turned to Brother Francis, who has placed in two graded stakes but is still a maiden after four starts.
Cassidy was asked how his maiden was doing when fellow trainer Jack Carava jumped in.
“Mr. Cassidy would request that you call him his Derby horse and not his maiden,” Carava said.
Golden Gate Fields opens its turf course this week and also will run its first 2-year-old race of the season as it returns to its normal eight-race weekday cards. The track was forced to go with seven weekday races the past two weeks because of the low number of horses available.
Three turf races are scheduled Thursday, with three more Friday. The 2-year-old season begins with a two-furlong race Friday that drew five fillies and four males.
Jockey Ramon Dominguez will take his comeback from a separated collarbone conservatively, riding just two days a week for the next two weeks before attempting to return to a full-time schedule on April 18.
On Monday, Dominguez got clearance from his doctors to resume riding Friday. He is named on two horses at Aqueduct. He will ride Alpha in Saturday’s $1 million Wood Memorial and participate in a few other races. He will then ride Havre de Grace in the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn on April 13 and Hansen in the Blue Grass at Keeneland on April 14.
The connections of Swale Stakes winner Trinniberg are more likely to point to the Preakness Stakes than the Kentucky Derby, owner Shivananda Parbhoo said Monday. Toward that end, Parbhoo chose to run his 3-year-old in Saturday’s $250,000 Bay Shore at seven furlongs as opposed to the Illinois Derby at 1 1/8 miles.
“I don’t think he’s ready to go a mile and an eighth right now,” Parbhoo said Monday.
