LEXINGTON, Ky. - The sixth track record of the meet was set Sunday when Grigio ($8.80) won the second race, a maiden special weight event at 1 1/16 miles, by 7 3/4 lengths in 1:40.86. The new mark erased the 1:41.61 set just three days earlier by Baby Afleet. Edgar Prado was aboard Grigio, a 3-year-old colt by Stormy Atlantic, for Churchill-based trainer Jimmy Baker.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mike DePaulo enjoyed a stakes double dip here last weekend, sending out Kitty’s Got Class to capture Sunday’s $150,000 Fanfreluche after Pender Harbour prevailed in Saturday’s $126,200 Bunty Lawless.
Both horses also have been strong advertisements for both the Ontario-sired program and the local yearling sales, where Kitty’s Got Class was purchased for $2,500 and Pender Harbour for $17,000.
Citing a reduction in horses on the grounds as the meet nears its end, Thistledown has canceled its eight-race card on Thursday.
Thistledown will race Friday, as scheduled.
“Taking the breather will help us maximize our field size for the remaining seven days of live racing,” said racing secretary Bill Couch.
Thistledown’s 2011 meet closes Nov. 5.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Owner-trainer Tom McCarthy is hoping to turn the tables on one of his elders Saturday when the Grade 2, $150,000 Fayette Stakes helps to close out the 17-day Keeneland fall meet. McCarthy, 77, will send out General Quarters in the 1 1/8-mile Polytrack race against Future Prospect, owned and trained by 78-year-old D.H. Skaggs.
Future Prospect and General Quarters were one-two in the showcase event of the Sept. 24 Kentucky Cup series at Turfway Park, the $200,000 WinStar Kentucky Cup.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Steve Attard has won with 6 of his last 20 Woodbine starters, which includes three scores last week. He will try to keep the roll going Wednesday night when he sends out Kerry Convent in the third race, a 5 1/2-furlong allowance for Ontario-sired females.
Kerry Convent began her campaign April 22, with a victory in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden special. A month later, she finished up the track in the Lady Angela Stakes, and she also came up empty in a subsequent turf experiment.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The string gets played out this week at Keeneland, where only one stakes remains during the final four-day stretch of the fall meet. Still, there are some quality races to while away the afternoons in anticipation of another Breeders’ Cup in Kentucky, including a pair of two-turn allowance races to be run Wednesday on the turf.
With the Nov. 4-5 Breeders’ Cup right around the corner, Churchill Downs is trying to preserve its seven-furlong turf course as best it can. After months of keeping horses off the course, workouts began Monday morning over a turf rated good by the clockers, and as horses breezed, squishing noises and divots could be plainly heard and seen.
Caracortado works five furlongs
Caracortado, the winner of the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile in August, worked five furlongs in 1:00 on Sunday for the BC Turf Sprint. A 4-year-old gelding, Caracortado galloped out six furlongs in 1:14, according to trainer and co-owner Mike Machowsky.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Irish Art handled the transition from an allowance race to stakes with no difficultly in Sunday’s $75,840 Uniformity Stakes at Santa Anita, suggesting that further improvement is possible for the late-developing 3-year-old colt.
Northern Candyride was kept just off the early pace by jockey Rodney Prescott to upper stretch and then rallied to win the $88,700 To Much Coffee, one of four stakes on closing day of the Hoosier Park meet Sunday.
Trained by Richard Kohnhorst, Northern Candyride bested a full field of older Indiana-breds going a mile and a sixteenth. Brickyard was second under Leandro Goncalves and Heza Wild Guy was third. The margin of victory in the To Much Coffee was a length and a quarter and Northern Candyride returned $11.60 while running the mile and a sixteenth in 1.45.00.
