FLORENCE, Ky. - Flashy Dresser entered Saturday's $75,000 Rushaway Stakes as a promising maiden winner. More significantly, he exited it as a stakes winner, and perhaps a potential player on the Triple Crown trail.
Despite being the least experienced starter in the field, it never showed in Flashy Dresser's performance. He comfortably stalked the pace in third in his first start around turn turns, and outdueled stakes Gung Ho in a long stretch battle to win by a half-length.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Jockey Victor Espinoza was taken off his mounts at Santa Anita over the weekend after being involved in a spill in Friday’s Pasadena Stakes.
Steward Kim Sawyer said that Espinoza did not suffer any broken bones in the spill, but had complained of pain in an arm. The jockey’s agent, Brad Pegram, was not available for comment on Saturday morning.
FLORENCE, Ky. – Hogy returned from a six-month layoff in terrific fashion Saturday when rolling to a 6 3/4-length victory in the $50,000 Hansel Stakes at Turfway Park.
With Tanner Riggs aboard for owner Alice Mettler and trainer Joel Berndt, Hogy swept past the front-running filly, She’s Ready Made, at the quarter pole and was never challenged from there. He returned $12.40 as third choice in a field of 10 3-year-olds after finishing six furlongs in 1:10.33 over Polytrack.
Anthony Dutrow thinks he has found the key to the 5-year-old mare High Quality and expects big things of her Tuesday when she faces seven other older fillies and mares in the $75,000 Langhorne at Parx Racing.
High Quality, a daughter of Elusive Quality, impressively won an optional claiming race at Parx on Feb. 25 going six furlongs, earning a Beyer Figure of 92, a lifetime best. Dutrow says the reason is pretty clear.
“I put blinkers on her and shortened her up in distance,” he said. “It seems logical that’s what improved her so much.”
Harlan Street and Tend, a pair of 7-year-old geldings with a fondness for sprinting, will try to turn back the clock and remember how to handle two turns in Monday night’s featured ninth race at Mountaineer Racetrack.
The no-conditions, $33,700 allowance race, which goes as race 9 on a 10-race card, drew a field of six older males and one mare going a flat mile.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Chips All In ($9.80) won his third stakes in the $74,260 Pasadena Stakes on Friday. Ridden by Alonso Quinonez, Chips All In led throughout and held off a late threat from 9-1 Tones to win by a neck. Chips All In finished a mile on turf in 1:34.56. Midnight Crooner, the 2-1 favorite, finished third, a length behind Tones in his stakes debut.
Owner Mike Repole’s pair of Travers winner Stay Thirsty and the undefeated 3-year-old Overdriven both continue to progress towards their 2012 debuts at Palm Meadows with trainer Todd Pletcher. Both horses turned in their first half-mile breezes since returning to training earlier this winter, with Stay Thirsty going in 50.70 in company with stablemate Colizeo and Overdriven four furlongs in 51.40.
“They’re not quite there yet,” said Pletcher. “If all continues to go well, both should be ready to run sometime in May.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Five of the seven prospective starters for next Saturday’s $1 million Florida Derby worked at three different venues on Saturday morning, including division leader Union Rags, who went an easy but visually impressive half-mile in 49.10 seconds shortly after sunrise at Palm Meadows.
Marjorie Everett, the former chairwoman of Hollywood Park, died of complications of old age at her home in the west side of Los Angeles on Friday morning, two of her friends said. She was 90, and had been in frail health. In recent months, Everett had dealt with memory and mobility issues, her friends said.
A native of Albany, N.Y., who was adopted at the age of 10 months, Everett spent her adult life in horse racing, in the Midwest and California. She lived in Southern California after leaving racetrack management in 1991.
