ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will roll out the red carpet Sunday for Game On Dude, the top handicap horse in California and lone speed in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes. The San Antonio is race 7, and the fifth leg of the pick six, whch will have a $353,248 carryover following I'll Have Another's $88 victory in Saturday's Robert Lewis Stakes.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – If trainer Rudy Rodriguez gets his way, his undefeated New York-bred sprinting filly Agave Kiss will skip next Saturday’s $75,000 Dearly Precious Stakes at Aqueduct and await the Grade 3 Cicada on March 10.
“I think I’m going to pass the race,’’ Rodriguez, who trains Agave Kiss for Viane Lizza’s Flying Zee Stable, said Friday morning in his barn office at Aqueduct. “She’s good, she’s doing everything we’ve asked her to do, but if it was up to me I don’t want to run. I don’t want to overdo it, I want to try to keep her fresh.”
Everything is swell in the world of the 2011 Horse of the Year. Havre de Grace has settled comfortably into her winter quarters on the Fair Grounds backstretch and has been taking steady steps toward her 2012 debut, trainer Larry Jones said earlier this week.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Success on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita has put trainer Marty Jones’s stable firmly in the top 10 at Santa Anita this winter.
Jones’s stable won three races, including two stakes, in late January and early February on the hillside turf course – the Sensational Star Stakes with Compari on Jan. 28, the Wishing Well Stakes with the remarkable Unzip Me on Jan. 29, and an optional claimer with Don Perico on Thursday. The 3-year-old maiden Zackn’mat won a seven-furlong race on dirt Jan. 29.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Kate’s Main Man, a $35,000 claim at Oaklawn Park in 2010 who pushed past $500,000 in earnings last season, makes his return Sunday in the featured eighth race. The optional $50,000 claiming race at a mile drew seven older horses, including Omniscient, the probable favorite off a close fourth in the $125,000 Delta Downs Mile. Kate’s Main Man, who was named the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association’s claimer of the year for 2010, races for Randy Patterson and is trained by Randy Morse.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Jimmy Iselin was 26 years old when the New York Jets, then partly-owned by his father, Phil, upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Iselin, like all Jets fans, is still waiting for the Jets next Super Bowl appearance.
Sunday, approximately three hours before the New York Giants and New England Patriots tee it up in Super Bowl XLVI, Iselin will be wearing his father’s Super Bowl ring when he saddles the 7-year-old mare Still Waiting in a first-level New York-bred allowance race that serves as Aqueduct’s feature on a nine-race program.
MIAMI – Calder Race Course will present 58 stakes races worth over $6.6 million in purses during its 2012 season, which begins on April 9.
The rich Summit of Speed on July 7 will again highlight the schedule, offering six stakes worth $1.3 million highlighted by the Grade 1 Princess Rooney Handicap and Grade 2 Smile Sprint Handicap. The Summit also includes the Grade 3 Azalea and Carry Back stakes for 3-year-olds. The purses of both the Princess Rooney and Smile have been raised to $400,000 this summer, up $50,000 apiece from a year ago.
Federal prosecutors in Florida have charged the former superintendent of Calder Race Course in Miami with fraud for his alleged participation in a kickback scheme that could have cost the track as much as $4.5 million over a decade, according to an indictment released Thursday by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
The 77th running of the Longacres Mile is, as usual, the highlight of the 2012 Emerald Downs stakes schedule. The 81-day meet at the Seattle-area track begins April 13 and runs through Sept. 23.
The Grade 3, $200,000 Longacres Mile will be run Sunday, Aug. 19, on a card with the $65,000 Emerald Distaff. Awesome Gem came in from California to win the Mile last year.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - King and Crusader, who won two races over Aqueduct's inner track in four days including the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes, could make his next start in the Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes on March 3, trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. said Thursday.
King and Crusader, a son of Lion Heart, won a restricted optional claimer on Jan. 13 going a two-turn mile and then came on Jan. 16 to take the six-furlong Jimmy Winkfield.
