SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Most barns are empty and whatever leaves remaining on the trees are multi-colored. However, activity at the Oklahoma training track on this crisp October Tuesday morning was almost as brisk as if the calendar had read August.
After several days of wet tracks prompted trainers to postpone workouts, a total of 90 horses breezed Tuesday morning at Saratoga, including about two dozen from trainer Nick Zito’s barn.
Plans have been finalized for millionaire Bold Chieftain to stand at stud at Ellen Jackson’s Victory Rose Farm in Vacaville, Calif. But first, he could have one or possibly two more starts.
The 8-year-old California-bred son of Chief Seattle won the $62.600 Bull Dog Stakes at the Big Fresno Fair on Sunday, reversing a nose loss to Uh Oh Bango in the Grade 3 Berkeley Handicap at Golden Gate Fields on Memorial Day.
The victory was the 18th of his career and his 14th in a stakes. His career earnings are $1,643,171.
MIAMI – Owner-breeder Fred Brei and his trainer Stanley Gold said Tuesday that all three of their 2011 Florida Stallion Stakes winners – Fort Loudon, Awesome Belle, and Redbud Road – remain under consideration for this year’s Breeders’ Cup, although of the trio Fort Loudon is the most likely to go.
The Golden Gate Fields 22-day fall meet, which ran from Aug. 19-Oct. 2, showed a daily average handle increase over the 2010 meet, which lasted 27 days.
The all-sources average daily handle showed a 5.51 percent increase over 2010, to $2,948,582 compared with $2,794,549 in 2010.
The track showed significant increases ontrack. Average daily ontrack betting on Golden Gate’s races rose 19 percent from 2010.
Attendance jumped 27 percent per day from 2,352 in 2010 to 2,988 this year.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Discretion could prove the better part of valor for a trio of 3-year-old fillies who will reconvene Saturday in the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes at Keeneland. No one could have blamed their respective connections if they had opted for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, but that temptation was resisted on all counts.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – She wasn’t a participant in the Grade 1 stakes extravaganza here last Sunday, but last weekend still was one to remember for trainer Gail Cox.
Hard Not to Like gave Cox the biggest win of her career in last Saturday’s $250,400 Cup and Saucer, a 1 1/16-mile turf race in which she was the lone member of her sex.
A homebred 2-year-old filly who races for Garland Williamson, Hard Not to Like had suffered her first defeat four weeks earlier when she finished fifth, beaten 10 1/4 lengths, in the Grade 3 Natalma over one mile on turf.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Galan’s Wings will try to keep her unbeaten record intact in Thursday’s second race at Woodbine, a six-furlong allowance for 2-year-old fillies, in which her tactical speed could come in handy.
Galan’s Wings, trained by Roger Attfield for Harlequin Ranches, annihilated a field of $20,000 maidens in her first start Sept. 4. She shrugged off an early challenger for the lead in that six-furlong sprint, and then widened her lead throughout the stretch to score by nearly seven lengths, with a Beyer Speed Figure of 55.
ELMONT, N.Y. – At Belmont Park’s spring meet, Shug McGaughey sent out Hymn Book and Boisterous to win off-turf and on-turf versions of the Three Coins Up overnight stakes three days apart.
After winning Saturday’s Knickerbocker Stakes with a freshened Boisterous, McGaughey looks to do the same thing with Hymn Book in Thursday’s Firethorn overnight stakes. The 5-year-old Hymn Book makes his first start since a sixth-place finish in the Bernard Baruch over a turf course labeled good.
Delta Downs in Vinton, La., opens Wednesday night on the countdown to the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot. The biggest race of the meet is exactly a month away, with the prep for the 2-year-old fixture, the $200,000 Jean Lafitte, to be run Saturday night. The races are two of the highlights of the 88-date season that will run through March 17, 2012.
