Rarely has a horse been so presciently named.
“Redux” – to be brought back, to be resurgent. That nails it. Again and again, Rapid Redux has come back a winner in starter-allowance races all over the eastern United States. He has won all 16 of his starts in 2011 and on Thursday at Laurel Park goes for his 19th straight victory, which would tie Peppers Pride and Zenyatta for the longest winning streak in modern Thoroughbred history.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Three-year-old fillies trained by Todd Pletcher and Tom Albertrani make up 80 percent of the five-horse field for Thursday’s Real Prize overnight stakes. Pletcher entered Love and Pride and R Gypsy Gold, while Albertrani sends out Draw It and My Assets.
The only other entrant is the Christophe Clement-trained Miss Valentine, who beat Draw It by a nose in the Mom’s Command overnight stakes last time out.
Dual Grade 1 winner and course record-setter Shakespeare will relocate from Florida to Kentucky, where he will stand at Lane’s End in 2012.
The Versailles, Ky., farm will announce his fee later. Signature Stallions in Reddick, Fla., had advertised him for $10,000 on its website.
More than 18 years after his death, Hoss Inman is still winning races. His estate co-bred and co-owns Cherokee Lord, who dominated last week’s $125,000 Green at Remington Park and his headed next to the Grade 3, $100,000 River City at Churchill Downs.
Dean Pederson’s happy homecoming turned into a milestone victory for jockey David Lopez in Saturday’s Oakland Stakes at Golden Gate Fields.
Pederson, who moved his barn south this spring, made a triumphant comeback when Sourdough Sam rallied from last to pull away from old rival – and odds-on favorite – Shudacudawudya in the stretch of the six-furlong stakes for 3-year-olds and up. For Lopez, it was victory No. 1,000 in his career.
Pederson moved to Southern California last spring when the Hollywood Park meet opened.
Trainer James Bond believed Tizway was “an unbelievable racehorse” and was champing at the bit to show the rest of the world just how unbelievable at next week’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.
He won’t get that opportunity.
Tizway’s career came to an abrupt end Tuesday when he was diagnosed with a strain of the suspensory ligament of his left foreleg that will force him out of the Breeders’ Cup. He will now be retired to stud at B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky.
The Factor, one of trainer Bob Baffert’s leading hopes for the Breeders’ Cup, zoomed seven furlongs in 1:22.20 at Santa Anita on Tuesday morning. Baffert said over the weekend that The Factor would be pre-entered for the BC Sprint and the BC Dirt Mile. The Hall of Fame trainer may have as many as 10 starters in the Breeders’ Cup.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Smiling Tiger and Unzip Me, California-based sprinters who finished third in Breeders’ Cup races at Churchill Downs in 2010, will not be making return engagements for Breeders’ Cup races in Kentucky on Nov. 5, their respective trainers said.
They were not pre-entered on Monday, when such entries were due. The Breeders’ Cup was scheduled to announce the pre-entered runners on Wednesday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – At face value, Spirit Seeker’s third consecutive dirt-surface victory makes her a veritable standout in an optional claimer that highlights a sleepy card Thursday at Santa Anita.
However, extenuating circumstances Oct. 13 cast doubt on the validity of Spirit Seeker’s recent front-running victory in the mile race for $20,000 claiming fillies and mares. The air temperature was 99 degrees, track maintenance crews increased the application of water, and the main track produced a series of rail-skimming winners.
ARCADIA, Calif. – When it seemed the racing career of the multiple stakes winner Bob Black Jack was over because of injury in early 2010, trainer James Kasparoff found it more difficult than expected to find him a new home.
There was minimal interest from California’s stud farms, and the financial side of a potential stallion deal did not appeal to owners Jeff Harmon and Tim Kasparoff, James’s brother. In fact, the financial side was nonexistent, Kasparoff recalled.
