HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The distance experiment is over with Will’s Wildcat.
After finishing far back in both the Grade 1 Clark Handicap and Grade 3 Hal’s Hope, Will’s Wildcat is back to doing what he does best, sprinting. A stakes winner at 3, Will’s Wildcat will return to stakes company in the 6 1/2-furlong Sir Shackleton on next Saturday’s Florida Derby undercard.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Saturday’s Pan American at Gulfstream Park was upgraded from a Grade 3 to a Grade 2 this season, but apparently not many horsemen seemed to care.
A field of only six long-winded specialists was drawn Wednesday for the 1 1/2-mile Pan Am, and the racing office had to struggle just to get a half-dozen horses to sign on for the race.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – There is no bigger proponent of Aqueduct’s main track than trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. Despite the fact he won with 38 percent of his starters during the inner track meet, Dutrow was probably elated when NYRA moved up the opening of the main track to Wednesday, two weeks earlier than scheduled.
Leonard Blach and trainer Tim Ice were adversaries during the 2009 Triple Crown series, when Blach co-raced Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird and Ice sent out Summer Bird to take the Belmont Stakes.
Sunday, the men will be on the same team. No Spin, co-owned by Blach and trained by Ice, is one of eight 3-year-olds set to start in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby. Entries for the 1 1/8-mile race were drawn on Wednesday.
Twice the Appeal, 10th in the 2011 Kentucky Derby, will start in the longest race of his career in Saturday’s $100,000 Tokyo City Cup over 1 1/2 miles on Santa Anita's main track.
Trained by Jeff Bonde, Twice the Appeal has made three subsequent starts since the Kentucky Derby, including a seventh in the Santa Anita Handicap on March 3. A 4-year-old colt, Twice the Appeal won the Sunland Park Derby in a 25-1 upset in March 2011.
Trainer Bob Baffert said he will not start the impressive maiden race winner Mamma Kimbo in an allowance race on Friday at Santa Anita after she sustained a cut on her head earlier this week in an apparent stall accident.
Baffert said the cause of the minor injury was not known.
“I had to stitch her up,” he said. “She cut it on something. She’ll be all right, but we had to treat her.”
Mamma Kimbo won a six-furlong maiden race by 5 1/4 lengths in 1:07.94 on Feb. 18, her career debut for owner Peachtree Stable.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Scratches replaced breakdowns as the topic of the day on this circuit Wednesday as racing at Aqueduct moved from the winterized inner track to the main track.
Eighteen of the 73 horses carded for Wednesday’s nine-race program, or 24.6 percent, were scratched – a high number considering conditions were dry and the track was labeled fast throughout the day.
There are no marquee names scheduled to run in the Grade 3, $500,000 Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park on Saturday, kind of like how it looked on the eve of the race last year. But, it turned out, that look was an illusion.
The Spiral was won by Animal Kingdom, who was making his stakes debut and had yet to run on dirt. But six weeks later, Animal Kingdom won the Kentucky Derby and followed that with a second-place finish in the Preakness Stakes, performances that helped him secure the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male for 2011.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Alex Cintron’s decision to test the waters at Oaklawn Park has resulted in the best meet of his young career. He is tied for sixth in the current standings, and on Friday has capable mounts in both allowance features at the track. Cintron will ride Iowa Breeders’ Derby winner One Hundred Proof in the eighth for trainer Kelly Von Hemel, and leading contender Big Tall Paul in the ninth for one of his strongest patrons, trainer Cody Autrey.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Drill, the winner of two graded stakes for sprinters but winless in four races around two turns, is bound for the $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 14, trainer Bob Baffert said on Wednesday.
The winner of the Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes over seven furlongs at Santa Anita on Feb. 19, Drill will start in the longest race of his career in the Grade 1 Blue Grass, which is run over 1 1/8 miles and is a key prep for the Kentucky Derby on May 5.
