Golden Gate Fields showed increases in average daily and total ontrack handle and attendance in 2011.
Average daily ontrack attendance jumped 8.8 percent over 2010, from 2,403 to 2,616.
Average daily ontrack handle improved 2.8 percent, from $436,986 to $449,315.
The all-sources daily handle – which includes ontrack, satellite location, and account betting, showed a 3.4 percent increase in average, from $1,792,436 in 2010 to $1,852,932.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Utley, whose only previous appearance in this country came in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, will try to kick-start what has been a somewhat disappointing career to date against first-level allowance competition in Friday’s $53,500 main event at Gulfstream Park.
Atlantic City Race Course will conduct a six-day, turf-only race meeting in 2012. The track's 66th season will be held from Friday to Sunday, April 27-29, and Tuesday to Thursday, May 1-3. Last year, Atlantic City held a six-day meet from April 28 to May 3.
The call down the stretch of Saturday’s first race at Golden Gate Fields by the track’s announcer, Michael Wrona, summed up the story of the day.
“Victor Trujillo really has begun his training career with a bang,” said Wrona, as Summers Peace won a $50,000 optional claimer on the turf.
The victory was the second in two days for Trujillo, who finished second last Thursday with the first horse he officially saddled, Hot Chaco.
Jockey Bonnie Castaneda is scheduled to undergo surgery Friday at University Hospital in Cincinnati to repair two broken vertebrae she suffered in a spill at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky on Sunday.
Castaneda, 50, moved her arms and legs and was responsive Tuesday after being in a coma for about 48 hours, according to her husband, trainer and former rider Marco Castaneda.
Rapid Redux was en route from trainer David Well’s home base in Pennsylvania to Laurel Park in Maryland on Wednesday morning, his injured hoof healed enough for him to participate in Laurel’s sixth race, in which he’ll be heavily favored to win for the 22nd time in a row.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Humberto Ascanio, a former assistant to Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel, is recovering from the effects of a stroke suffered on Dec. 30 and will at least temporarily disband his 12-horse stable, according to his son, Matthew.
Ascanio, 64, is undergoing rehabilitation at Arcadia Methodist Hospital and has shown improvement in recent days. Initially, Ascanio lost some movement on the right side of his body, but has since shown progress.
STICKNEY, Ill. – A return to a five-day race week boosted gross handle at the Hawthorne Race Course 2011 fall-winter meet that ended Dec. 31, but average daily handle at the track fell compared to the 2010 fall-winter meeting.
Trainer Marty Wolfson said he plans to be patient with his steadily improving 4-year-old Troilus who defeated a strong field of second-level optional claiming horses that included Grade 3 winner Endorsement and Travers third-place finisher J W Blue here Sunday.
Troilus, a son of Speightstown, was transferred to Wolfson’s barn by owner John Fort’s Peachtree Stable at the end of the Saratoga meet and won a pair of allowance races at Calder going five furlongs and a mile prior to passing his first real class check over the weekend.
