ARCADIA, Calif. – The depth of trainer Bob Baffert’s 3-year-old division will lead to multiple starters for the Hall of Famer in the $200,000 Robert Lewis Stakes next Saturday at Santa Anita.
Baffert will run Liaison, winner of the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park on Dec. 17, and Sky Kingdom, who was fourth in the CashCall and winner of an allowance race here Jan. 12.
Changes to the start and end date of Remington Park’s meet for Thoroughbreds have been approved by the Oklahoma Racing Commission. The track will now open its season on Friday, Aug. 10, after being originally scheduled to start the meet on Wednesday, Aug. 15. Remington will close a day later than originally scheduled, on Sunday, Dec. 9.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Augustin Bezara said immediately after Reveron upset the Gulfstream Park Derby here on New Years’ Day that the Grade 3 Holy Bull was not in his plans. And the Venezuelan-born horseman was true to his word.
Reveron is not among the six 3-year-olds entered in Sunday’s one-mile Holy Bull. Instead, Bezara is planning to ship Reveron, a son of Songandaprayer, to Tampa Bay Downs for next Saturday’s Grade 3 Sam F. Davis.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It isn’t a stakes race, but it could be. When Sunday’s seventh race at Gulfstream Park is over, one or more of the nine 3-year-olds entered will be stakes bound in a bid to get on the Triple Crown trail.
A trio of stakes-placed 3-year-olds – Casual Trick, Take Charge Indy, and El Padrino – will meet in a $53,000 first-level allowance race at 1 1/16 miles on Sunday’s card at Gulfstream, which is highlighted by the Grade 3, $400,000 Holy Bull Stakes, also for 3-year-olds.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Jockey Ronnie Allen Jr, currently the second leading rider at Tampa Bay Downs, escaped serious injury Thursday after he was thrown from his mount during the eighth race.
Allen, who had won a race earlier in the card to give him 25 winners for the current stand, was aboard Second Appeal in a six-furlong claiming sprint when the 4-year-old filly fell midway through the turn, throwing Allen to the ground.
The jockey was taken to St. Joseph Hospital where X-rays proved negative. He was later released.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A pair of optional claiming races with first-level allowance conditions share top billing Sunday.
Eight fillies and mares go six furlongs for a $62,000 pot in race 4. Full of Gut, a six-time winner on the circuit last year, makes her seasonal bow off a claim by Brad Baker in mid-December and heads the field.
Jess You and I is 8 this season, six long years removed from his first major stakes win in the Grade 1 Golden State Million Futurity at Los Alamitos in 2006.
Jess You and I has won seven Grade 1 races in his career, the most recent of which was the Los Alamitos Championship in October. It would be no surprise if he scores an eighth in the Los Alamitos Winter Championship on Feb. 19.
“He’s still pretty capable for his age,” trainer Paul Jones said Thursday.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Caracortado, the winner of the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes on Jan. 8, was expected to be scratched from Saturday’s $100,000 Sensational Star Stakes at Santa Anita because of a minor foot problem, trainer Mike Machowsky said on Friday.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hansen has kept a pretty low profile throughout his brief but successful racing career, doing the majority of his training in the relative anonymity of the Trackside Training Center in Kentucky prior to his victory in the Breeders’ Cup and under the cloak of darkness since arriving in south Florida last month.
ARCADIA, Calif. – For the past two seasons, Unzip Me ruled the West Coast female turf sprint division like none other – winning eight stakes in California and one in Canada.
To win a turf sprint in California, particularly at Santa Anita, Unzip Me always was the horse to beat. At one point she won five straight down the hill, and appeared to regain top form in October with a sharp stakes victory over statebred fillies and mares.
