PORTLAND, Ore. -- The McFadden Memorial Sprint Claiming Series Finals are coming up on Wednesday, offering a $26,900 purse. The first two legs have not only produced some exciting racing, but four separate winners in the four divisions, and tons of action at the claiming box. The McFadden Memorial Sprint Claiming Series Finals will be race 6 on Wednesday, and post time is 2:20 p.m. Pacific.
Here is a profile of the contenders in the finals:
1. Swiss Exploit
Owner: Bob and Pat Cosgrove
Jockey Jorge Chavez said Monday that he won’t decide on his riding future until he determines how he feels after he recovers from multiple injuries suffered in a spill during the running of Sunday’s ninth race at Aqueduct.
“I’ll know in three or four months from now,’’ Chavez said Monday as he lay in a hospital bed in North Shore University Hospital. “Right now, I don’t want to think about it.’’
INGLEWOOD, Calif.- At the end of her 4-year-old season, and a dozen races into her career, Ellafitz is finally thriving for owners David and Ella Sivage and trainer Bob Baffert.
Sunday at Hollywood Park, Ellafitz led throughout the $150,000 Bayakoa Handicap to win the first stakes of her career. The filly had placed in two stakes in 2010 and finally had a breakthrough performance in an important race in the Grade 2 Bayakoa.
McKenna’s Justice won the richest Thoroughbred race of the Zia Park meet in a head bob on Sunday, when he edged Red Lead by a nose in the $200,000 Distance Championship. The 1 1/8-mile race was one of three stakes on the final card of the season, and all three produced double-digit winners.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario—Eagle Poise lowered the 1 3/4-mile track record in a thrilling renewal of the $153,300 Valedictory Stakes, Woodbine’s closing day feature on Sunday.
Eagle Poise ($8.80), based in Maryland with trainer Graham Motion, shipped in to win the Nov. 11 allowance prep for the Valedictory by a neck over Eye of the Leopard, who was the slight favorite over Breeders’ Cup Marathon winner Afleet Again in the Grade 3 Valedictory.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Weemissfrankie lost her unbeaten record with a third-place finish behind My Miss Aurelia and Grace Hall in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs in November.
She lost little else in defeat.
In the weeks after the race, trainer Peter Eurton said that Weemissfrankie regained the weight she had lost from the journey to Kentucky. She recovered quickly enough for Eurton to plan for a start in Saturday's $250,000 Hollywood Starlet Stakes at Hollywood Park, the last Grade 1 race of the year for 2-year-old fillies.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.- Any doubts about Zero Rate Policy’s ability to stay seven furlongs were erased in the 1:21.57 it took the improving 3-year-old to cover the distance en route to his 1 1/4-length victory over a late-running Manicero in Sunday’s $60,000 Sunshine State Stakes at Gulfstream.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.- Soaring Empire, winner of the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope in his 2011 debut, will be back to defend that title, trainer Cam Gambolati said on Sunday.
Soaring Empire has not started since winning Monmouth Park’s Majestic Light Stakes on July 31. He worked for just the second time since that outing early Sunday morning at Gulfstream Park, going a half mile in 46 seconds and galloping out five-eighths in 58.40 in company with jockey Julien Leparoux aboard.
Fortune Play, ridden by Ramon Vazquez, finally got the best of Waccamaw in a lengthy stretch duel Saturday night to post a head victory in the $50,000 Holiday Inaugural at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.
