Applauding, who will be scratched from the Grade 3, $200,000 Rachel Alexandra Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on Saturday because she has not been training satisfactorily, is being sent to the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., for a thorough evaluation, trainer Al Stall Jr. said Wednesday morning.
“Her joints are great, her mind is fine, but she’s just not right, so we’re going to have an internist look at her,” Stall said.
Plans are undecided for El Camino Real Derby winner Daddy Nose Best, but runner-up Lucky Chappy will run next in the $2 million UAE Derby on the Dubai World Cup card in Dubai.
One of the primary reasons trainer Graham Motion sent Lucky Chappy to Golden Gate Fields to run last Saturday in the Grade 3 El Camino Real was to get him a race over a Tapeta synthetic surface. That is the same surface used at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
Bob Zollars owns Daddy Nose Best with his wife, Cathy, and he said the colt would probably run next on dirt, but no decision has been made.
Steve Margolis contemplated a return in the Mardi Gras Stakes earlier this week for Bouquet Booth, but then he got to thinking a little deeper.
“I decided I should just try for an easier spot,” the 48-year-old trainer said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There’s no shortage of speed in Friday’s featured eighth race at Aqueduct, a second-level allowance/optional claimer containing several sprinters who have won at least one of their recent starts in wire-to-wire fashion.
The field of nine includes the Darley Stable entry of Mysticism and Opening Move, who both have high-octane early speed, and the Repole stable entry of Driven by Solar and Overcommunication, a pair of horses for the course returning from layoffs who are both capable of mixing it up early, and have combined for seven wins on the inner track.
NEW ORLEANS – Havre de Grace, the 2011 Horse of the Year, will make her first start of the new year in the Grade 3, $150,000 Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 17, owner Rick Porter and trainer Larry Jones said Wednesday.
Porter released the news on the website of his Fox Hill Farm.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine’s three biggest days will be bigger than ever this year with stakes being added to the Queen’s Plate, Woodbine Mile, and Canadian International programs.
The changes were made public with Wednesday’s release of the stakes schedule for the 2012 meeting, which consists of 102 guaranteed stakes worth a total of $23 million.
A backstretch worker at Gulfstream Park has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault for severely injuring a hotwalker during a late-night fight over the weekend.
Enrique Rodriguez is in jail in Broward County after being charged with aggravated assault and tampering with evidence, according to Capt. Pedro Abut, a public information officer for the Hallandale police. According to Abut, Rodriguez claimed that the victim, Transito Salazar, was his uncle. The two were roommates in a Gulfstream dorm.
When Daisy Devine won a $30,000 maiden-claiming race in the second start of her career, she already had earned back the $5,500 owner James Miller paid for her at auction. The rest has been gravy -- and there has been plenty of it.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - On Fire Baby, a leading Kentucky Oaks candidate based at Oaklawn, breezed five furlongs in a bullet 59.80 seconds Monday. She is continuing her preparations for a start in next month’s Grade 3, $125,000 Honeybee on March 10.
On Fire Baby worked first after the renovation break, under regular rider Joe Johnson. She backtracked to the sixteenth pole upon coming out on the track, then galloped to the backstretch before going into her work with good energy, getting her first eighth of a mile in 11.80 seconds, according to Oaklawn’s head clocker, Jim Hamilton.
