ELMONT, N.Y. – Awesome Feather, last year’s champion 2-year-old filly, made a successful return to the races Wednesday at Belmont Park, beating a modest group of challengers by two lengths in the $60,000 Le Slew Stakes.
The victory kept Awesome Feather undefeated in seven career starts and rewarded the patience of her new owner, Frank Stronach, and trainer Chad Brown.
Trainer Graham Motion is taking an unconventional approach to prepare defending champion Shared Account and the stakes-placed Aruna for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4.
While leading American contenders such as Stacelita and Dubawi Heights are set for the Filly and Mare Turf after major stakes wins last weekend, Shared Account will be trained up to the race. Earlier this year, she was fourth in the Gallorette Handicap at Pimlico in May and was sixth in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes at Woodbine on Sept. 18.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Gio Ponti and Get Stormy head what might be the deepest field in years in the Grade 1, $600,000 Shadwell Turf Mile, the last of five straight graded stakes set for a blockbuster Saturday card at Keeneland.
Gio Ponti, winner of the Shadwell last year, was assigned post 5 in a field of eight in the Shadwell, a Win and You’re In race toward the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Ramon Dominguez will ride 6-year-old Gio Ponti for owner Castleton Lyons and trainer Christophe Clement.
Unbeaten fillies Grace Hall and Weemissfrankie punched tickets to the Juvenile Fillies, but neither will travel to Churchill Downs any time soon.
“We’ll stay right here at Delaware Park until the last minute,” trainer Anthony Dutrow said after Grace Hall won the $75,000 Blue Hen Stakes on Oct. 1 at Delaware. Grace Hall earned a 78 Beyer Speed Figure winning the 1 1/16-mile arace by 5 3/4 lengths.
The long and winding road for Stars to Shine has taken her from Kentucky to England, to Canada, and now back to Kentucky, where on Sunday her future will be determined by how she performs in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland.
Bridgetown, who has won three of four U.S. starts this year for Todd Pletcher, most notably a runaway score in the Troy Stakes at Saratoga that made him one of the early favorites for the Turf Sprint, will not make the race.
Bridgetown, fourth in the Turf Sprint at 3, had posted three triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures during his 4-year-old campaign. The Speightstown homebred was sent to owner Eugene Melnyk’s farm in Ocala for some clinical work, and MRI results indicated he was “not quite right.”
STICKNEY, Ill. – The Sport of Kings typically is more business than sport. Lower-level owners sell prospects for big bucks. Young horses are rushed off to a stud career that will generate more money than racing.
Rudy and Virginia Tarra already rejected the former path, turning down seven-figure offers for Giant Oak in 2008 and 2009, and now they are on the cusp of backing away from the latter, with plans to race 5-year-old Giant Oak again in 2012 rather than sell him as a Kentucky stallion.
Last Sunday’s Grade 2 Nashua Stakes and Grade 3 Tempted Stakes at Belmont Park were repositioned on New York’s stakes calendar and shortened to six furlongs to make them viable preps toward the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint on Nov. 4.
Yet only one of those two races, the Nashua, seems likely to generate many Juvenile Sprint starters.
At least three runners from that race are expected to return in the Juvenile Sprint, led by the winner, Vexor, who won the race by three-quarters of a length over the non-Breeders’ Cup-nominated Trinniberg.
Pure Gossip, Slip Along Band, and Dayatthespa are all legitimate contenders for the Grade 2, $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Nov. 4, but to play each of their camps will have to pay $100,000 to make them eligible for the race. None of the fillies are Breeders’ Cup-nominated, which creates a six-figure question that must be answered by the date of pre-entries Oct. 24.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Aikenite has developed quite a tradition at Keeneland, albeit not one as old as the Phoenix Stakes. The 4-year-old Dogwood Stable star has an unmistakable knack for running well over the local Polytrack surface, having posted daylight scores in an allowance race here last fall and the Grade 2 Commonwealth Stakes last April.
