NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Neil Pessin dashed out for lunch Friday to one of his favorite places around here, Charlie’s Sea Food in nearby Harahan. He recommends the seafood-stuffed eggplant and the corn and crab chowder, by the way.
Oceanik never had a steady schedule of races in a lucrative 2-year-old campaign last year.
Winless in seven starts at 2, he had a successful year, earning $137,390 for owner Harold Nichols, a sum boosted by a third-place finish in the Ed Burke Million Futurity last June.
A great Saturday of racing and wagering is followed by another banner day Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, when Gulfstream Park stages the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, a race that falls in the sequence of the track’s unique 10-cent minimum pick six. Below is a quick look at the six races, and I'm building my recommended wager with TicketMaker, found exclusively on DRF.com.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – In college basketball, midseason meetings between the number one- and number two-ranked teams are well-hyped, often meaningless, and usually long forgotten by the time the Big Dance rolls around. On the Kentucky Derby trail, confrontations between the number one and two prospects 10 weeks in advance of the main event are rare, highly anticipated, and a bit more relevant – but perhaps no real harbinger of what to expect on the first Saturday of May.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The favorites in the feature race Sunday at Santa Anita are opposites – Smoking G is a fast horse that runs near the front, Stoney Fleece is a deep closer that mows them down late.
Smoking G and Stoney Fleece meet Sunday in the $70,000 Baffle Stakes, a 6 1/2-furlong turf sprint for 3-year-olds that will be decided by an age-old handicapping riddle – speed or class? If the answer is speed, then Smoking G is the right horse.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Coming off impressive victories in mid-January, Great Gracie Dane and Opus A will vie for favoritism in Sunday’s $75,000 Hildy’s Grey overnight stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares at Aqueduct.
Sunday's card will feature a $113,726 pick-six carryover as the bet went unhit for the second consecutive day Saturday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Two leaders of the older handicap division, Shackleford and Mucho Macho Man, took advantage of a gorgeous morning in south Florida to work over a fast racetrack Friday at Gulfstream Park.
Usually big-name horses result in less depth and fewer betting options. But for most part, that’s not evident in the pick five Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012, at Gulfstream Park, with only the opening leg, the Grade 3, $100,000 Sabin, having a short field.
Here's my race-by-race rundown of picks. I'm building my wager with TicketMaker, found exclusively on DRF.com.
NEW ORLEANS – It turns out Havre de Grace, the 2011 Horse of the Year, will make her 2012 debut here at Fair Grounds after all.
Owner Rick Porter, having been informed that Havre de Grace’s weight assignment for the New Orleans Ladies on March 17 would be far more advantageous than originally told and encouraged by Fair Grounds management boosting the purse of the race, early Friday afternoon said Havre de Grace would run in the New Orleans Ladies, rather than go to the Grade 3 Azeri at Oaklawn Park the same day.
Jockey Garrett Gomez said Thursday he is hoping to receive doctor’s clearance this weekend to resume exercising horses after missing the last seven weeks with a heel injury.
Gomez underwent X-rays on Tuesday on his injured heel and said a CAT scan will be taken in coming days that will provide further information on the status of his recovery. He said he has not placed a timeframe on a comeback date, but is hoping to return as early as the weekends of March 3 or March 10.
