The last time the Frank De Francis Memorial Dash was contested at Laurel Park, it was a Grade 1 race and locally based Ravalo rallied gamely to get second, earning a 102 Beyer Speed Figure.
It’s now two years later. The De Francis Dash is back on Maryland’s racing calendar, albeit as an ungraded race with a purse of $150,000, half the value of the 2009 running.
Friend or Foe, last year’s Empire Classic winner who was sidelined in the summer due to an ankle injury, will resume training next week in Ocala, Fla., trainer John Kimmel said Wednesday.
Friend or Foe has been walking under tack and will start full training next week before joining Kimmel’s south Florida barn at Palm Meadows in mid-November.
Kimmel hopes to have Friend or Foe back to the races sometime during the Gulfstream Park meet.
Castro released from hospital
ELMONT, N.Y. – Coming off a terrific season in which he won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup and Grade 2 Suburban, Haynesfield was projected to be a significant player in the handicap division in 2011.
Myriad issues – mostly involving his feet – have limited the 5-year-old Haynesfield to just two starts this year. Saturday, following a five-month layoff, Haynesfield returns to the races and New York-bred competition when he heads a field of eight entered in the $200,000 Empire Classic at Belmont Park.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Santa Anita autumn meeting reached the halfway point on Monday with business figures that suggest a retroactive purse payment is possible at the end of the meeting, the track’s president, George Haines, said on Wednesday.
While the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes is known as the Test of the Champion, in recent years many of its winners have had a strikingly inglorious record coming out of that race. Since 2000, Commendable, Empire Maker, Sarava, Afleet Alex, Jazil, Rags to Riches, and Da’ Tara never won another race. Drosselmeyer, last year’s winner, got back to the winner’s circle this year against lesser company, and Ruler On Ice is winless in three tries since his upset victory four months ago.
Overseas, Sarafina was the ante-post betting favorite in the weeks preceding the Oct. 2 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, but on an crazily hot day in Paris, Sarafina burned up her backers cash, finishing seventh of 16 in the Arc. There were no apparent excuses during the race, but the unseasonably warm weather and unusually fast course conditions might have worked against Sarafina, and she will try to make amends next month at Churchill Downs in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Buff Bradley usually has his best horses stabled 80 miles away at Churchill Downs, but when he realized he was going to run Groupie Doll in the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes over the Polytrack surface at Keeneland, he went out of his way to have the filly train here.
“We did it so she’ll be familiar with the surface and won’t have to ship,” said Bradley, who has been all too happy to have Groupie Doll replace the retired Brass Hat as his stable star. “She’s going into the race very well.”
A lot can go wrong in three months – especially in racing. Mike Puype considers himself very fortunate that not only has Turbulent Descent flourished in her training toward the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint since she won her last start, the Aug. 6 Test at Saratoga, but also that the competition for his star 3-year-old filly in this upcoming seven-furlong race could have been considerably stronger than what appears to be materializing.
Separate Fire, winner of the Ed Burke Million Futurity at Los Alamitos in June, is among 10 qualifiers for the $1.2 million Golden State Million Futurity on Oct. 30 after time trials Sunday.
For the second time this year, the filly will go into a final as the favorite, but without the fast qualifying time.
