DEL MAR, Calif. - Prayer for Relief and Plum Pretty, back in California for trainer Bob Baffert after spending the summer on the East Coast, worked at Del Mar over the weekend for upcoming stakes.
Prayer for Relief, the West Virginia Derby winner, is up first. He is headed to Louisiana Downs for the Super Derby on Saturday following a half-mile drill in 47.20 seconds on Sunday. Rafael Bejarano rides.
Jockey Jesus Castanon guided Bay Park Boy wide around the turn and powered home through the stretch for a two-length victory in Monday’s $126,387 Aspirant Stakes for 2-year-old New York-bred males at Finger Lakes.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The well-traveled Banned, who won the Del Mar Derby on Sunday in his first start in California, will remain in California for an upcoming race at Santa Anita's fall meeting. His trainer, Tom Proctor, said the Oak Tree Derby would be next, followed by a deserved vacation.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Del Mar’s business has been so far above projections this summer that the track announced on Monday it would pay an additional $1 million in purses, a record underpayment.
According to track officials, the payment will come to approximately 8 percent on top of the overnight purses already distributed this summer.
The meet ends Wednesday.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The racing career of St Trinians may be winding down just as trainer Mike Mitchell figures he knows exactly what to do with her. She wants a waiting ride, and she wants a synthetic surface. With both those factors in her corner on Sunday at Del Mar, St Trinians won the Adoration Stakes for older fillies and mares, and now Mitchell has his sights set on next month's Spinster Stakes at Keeneland.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Gypsy Robin held off a late run from Say a Novena on Monday to win the $101,000 Sorority Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Monmouth Park.
Gypsy Robin and jockey Jeffrey Sanchez took the lead from longshot Vukovar passing the quarter pole as Say a Novena split rivals. It appeared Say a Novena, winner of the Colleen Stakes, the Sorority prep, might have the best momentum until Gypsy Robin found another gear.
DEL MAR, Calif. – As a jockey for nine years, Jeff Bloom scored his biggest win in the Manitoba Derby. In recent years, Bloom has been better known for his work on the West Coast with West Point Thoroughbreds, for whom he helped manage the careers, among others, of the popular Awesome Gem. And, for more than a decade, Bloom has been a familiar face, and voice, to visitors at Del Mar, providing commentary during training hours for patrons eating breakfast trackside on weekends.
He’s been on racing’s radar, and that blip is getting a lot bigger.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Carbonite, the 5-year-old gelding trained by Mike Mitchell, has gone from claimer to Grade 1 runner this year, and on Wednesday lands somewhere in between.
He was claimed for $32,000 in May, and won a $50,000 claimer in June before finishing fourth in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar on July 31.
Mitchell debated whether to start Carbonite in another claiming race before Wednesday’s closing day of the Del Mar meeting, but has opted for a more lucrative target – the $85,000 Pirate’s Bounty Stakes over six furlongs.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Christine Windsor fell head over heels for Mobil when grooming that horse for owner/breeder Gustav Schickedanz and trainer Mike Keogh.
But after Mobil wound up his highly successful racing career and headed off to the breeding shed, Windsor eventually went in search of a surrogate and found it in the form of the horse who would become known as Welloiledmachine.
