ARCADIA, Calif.- Displaying the late rally that has defined her season, All Star Heart won her first graded stakes in Sunday’s $150,000 Las Palmas Handicap at Santa Anita.
Closing from last in a field of five fillies and mares, All Star Heart ($7.20) won the Grade 2 Las Palmas by two lengths over City to City. Sarah’s Secret was third in the field of five, followed by 7-5 favorite Malibu Pier and Ash Zee. Anniversary Girl, Private Affair and Turning Top were scratched earlier on Sunday.
Juan Vazquez repeated as Delaware Park’s leading trainer, finishing the 2011 season which concluded Saturday afternoon with 61 victories, 10 ahead of runner-up Jamie Ness.
Vazquez, 36, won his first training title at the 2010 meet with 83 victories.
Joe Rocco Jr., 29, won his first riding title with 94 victories, 20 more than Abel Castellano. Defending champion Rosie Napravnik, who missed three months with a fractured wrist, tied with Ricardo Chiappe for third with 36 victories.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hey, Bill Mott – give somebody else a turn!
Mott, who famously swept the two Breeders’ Cup anchor events at Churchill Downs with Royal Delta in the Ladies’ Classic and Drosselmeyer in the Classic, sent out yet another winner here Sunday when Deluxe ran to a hard-fought score in the Grade 3, $109,900 Cardinal Handicap, the featured event on an 11-race post-BC card.
Turbulent Descent, who finished a troubled fifth in Friday’s Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, will be pointed for the $250,000 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over seven furlongs at Santa Anita in late December, trainer Mike Puype said.
The date for the Grade 1 La Brea has not been finalized. Puype said that Turbulent Descent would start in the La Brea “without a question.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario — The favored Maritimer established himself as a contender for next year’s Queen’s Plate with a convincing score in the $250,800 Coronation Futurity at Woodbine on Sunday.
Weemissfrankie, third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs on Friday, may start again this year, and has the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill on May 4 as a long-term goal, trainer Peter Eurton said on Sunday.
Weemissfrankie was beaten nine lengths by My Miss Aurelia in the Juvenile Fillies, the first loss of her four-race career. Earlier this year, Weemissfrankie won a maiden race and two Grade 1 races – the Del Mar Debutante and Oak Leaf Stakes at Santa Anita
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Calibrachoa, who swept four starts at Aqueduct last fall and winter, got back on the winning track in Sunday’s Grade 3 Bold Ruler Handicap, improving to 5 for 5 on the Big A’s two dirt surfaces.
Calibrachoa began the year by winning the Toboggan and Tom Fool for Repole Stable and Todd Pletcher, but the 4-year-old had lost three subsequent starts, all on wet tracks, finishing third in the True North and Alfred G. Vanderbilt, and fifth most recently in the Vosburgh.
LOUISVILLE, Ky.- Big Drama, winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and reigning Eclipse Award champion sprinter, has been retired , trainer David Fawkes said Sunday morning at Churchill Downs.
Big Drama ended his career on Saturday finishing seventh in defense of his title in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Big Drama, a 5-year-old homebred son of Montbrook owned by Harold Queen, led throughout to capture last year’s Sprint by 1 1/2 lengths under jockey Eibar Coa.
There is something to be said for strength in numbers.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien sent 11 horses -- eight more than any other European horseman – to Churchill Downs for the 2011 Breeders’ Cup and was the only overseas trainer to get his picture taken this weekend.
