BOSSIER CITY, La. – Saturday has been designated Southern Showcase Day at Louisiana Downs and will feature some of the best young horses bred in Arkansas and Louisiana. Four stakes for 2-year-olds and a pair of one-mile turf events for 3-year-olds will be worth a combined $600,000.
AUBURN, Wash. – With no dominant colt or gelding in the 2-year-old ranks at Emerald Downs, Sunday’s season-ending Gottstein Futurity could fall to a filly for just the fifth time in the past 50 years. In fact, Sweet Saga, winner of the one-mile Barbara Shinpoch Stakes in her last start, could start as the favorite.
Antioch Diamond won all four of his Remington Park starts in 2010, and is in similar form at the Oklahoma City track this year. He opened the current meet with an allowance win earlier this month, and will seek to build upon the effort Friday night when he makes his second start of the local season in the $50,000 Remington Park Turf Sprint.
The five-furlong race for Oklahoma-breds highlights a card that includes a mile turf allowance that drew stakes winners Going Ballistic, Red Lead, Coyote Legend, Strategic Leader, and J J’s Indy.
ELMONT, N.Y. – A pair of $60,000 overnight stakes highlight Friday’s nine-race card at Belmont Park, though both could be impacted by Mother Nature.
With showers possible Wednesday through Friday, the $60,000 Positive Gal Stakes for 3-year-old fillies could be run over a wet main track while the $60,000 Third Martini could be run on soft turf or, depending how much rain falls, be moved to the main track.
POMONA, Calif. – The 1990s was the heyday for racing at the Los Angeles County Fair. The fall meet lasted 19 days, stakes purses routinely exceeded $100,000, and the Pomona Derby and Pomona Handicap were important races on the California autumn schedule.
It was the 1990s when Mama Simba ran amok on the five-eighths mile track at Fairplex Park. Mama Simba won five stakes over a four-year period (1990-93) and became the most successful mare to compete on the five-eighths bullring.
Turallure, suddenly a fringe contender for a divisional Eclipse Award after adding the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile to a 2011 victory resume that already included the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch, will not race again until the Nov. 5 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill, trainer Charlie Lopresti said Wednesday.
“We’ll just take it easy with him for a bit, then get him ready at Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup,” said Lopresti. “He really ran huge the other day.”
Ready’s Rocket, with Calvin Borel back to ride, appears to be in a good spot in a starter-allowance sprint carded early on a 12-race Friday evening program at Turfway.
Ready’s Rocket, an 8-year-old gelding trained by Tim Glyshaw, might well be the winningest horse on the Kentucky circuit in recent years, having compiled 16 victories at state tracks since 2008, including three this year. He will be favored in the fourth race, a $12,000 starter-allowance at 6 1/2 furlongs.
Bug’s Boy, an 8-year-old gelding who became a stakes winner in his 42nd career start here Sept 5, breezed five furlongs in a bullet 59 seconds under jockey Omar Moreno here Wednesday morning.
“He kind of had a good hold of him the first part,” said John LeBlanc, who trains Bug’s Boy for his wife, Maggie, and son, Douglas. “Bug’s Boy was eager to do something.
“As long as he comes out of it all right, we plan to go to the Overskate.”
The $125,000 Overskate, a seven-furlong race for Ontario-sired 3-year-olds and upward, will be run here Wednesday evening.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Charlie’s the Man looked like a prospect for this year’s Queen’s Plate last fall, before things went awry. He finally graduated in his last outing and will be looking to double up in Friday’s Woodbine feature, a 10-furlong allowance worth $70,300.
Charlie’s the Man wound up second in both of his 2-year-old appearances, including the nine-furlong Coronation Futurity. He got a late start to his current campaign, however, and had changed trainers before he bombed in his season opener, going from Roger Attfield to Brian Lynch.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Alpha Bettor ran his best race to date here at Woodbine in the June 12 Victoria Park, an open 1 1/8-mile stakes race for 3-year-olds in which he was beaten a nose as the runner-up to Moonshine Mullin.
On Saturday, Alpha Bettor will return to that distance for the $150,000 Ontario Derby, an open stakes race for 3-year-olds.
The Ontario Derby attracted a solid field of nine, headed by Moonshine Mullin and Pender Harbour, who also has been entered in Saturday’s Grade 2, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby.
