Feature Mr Bojangles sprung an upset in the Grade 1, $700,000 Rainbow Futurity for Quarter Horses on Sunday, when he powered to a half-length win over The Long Knife in the second leg of the All American Triple Crown at Ruidoso Downs. It was another half-length back in third to Jess Cuervo.
Feature Mr Bojangles paid $20.
DEL MAR, Calif. -- One day after winning the Grade 1 Eddie Read Stakes with Acclamation, owner Bud Johnston and trainer Don Warren picked up some spare change when favored Norvsky ($5.40) rallied powerfully to take the $100,000 California Dreamin Handicap for older California-bred turf horses on Sunday at Del Mar.
OMAHA, Neb. - Schramsberg needed his best to hold off defending champion Tenth Power but was up to the challenge in the $51,500 Omaha Stakes as the Horsemen's Park four-day festival of racing closed out with a thriller on Sunday afternoon.
Trainer Todd Fincher’s homecoming to Colorado was a successful one on Sunday, when he sent out Queen Greeley to a five-length win in the $40,000 Columbine at Arapahoe Park. She was the first horse Fincher, a Denver native, has ever saddled at the Aurora, Colo., track. The trainer is based in New Mexico.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Last year, the best 2-year-old in the country belonged to owner Mike Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher. Through Sunday, the best 2-year-old in the country this year belongs to owner Mike Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - She Digs Me won the Tyro and Pinch Pie took the Desert Vixen as racing resumed Sunday at Monmouth Park with a pair of $70,000 stakes.
The track canceled the Friday and Saturday cards because of the intense heat and humidity on the Jersey Shore. The Friday card will be run as originally drawn on Monday, normally a Monmouth dark day.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario—Windward Islands won the Grade 2 Nijinsky Stakes for the second year in a row at Woodbine on Sunday.
The favored Fifty Proof set a tepid pace in the nine-furlong turf event, which was run over a course labeled yielding. Hailstone stalked in second, and Windward Islands raced in third on the turn under Emma Wilson, who won four races on the card.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There’s something about the third day of the Saratoga meet that brings out the best in jockey Javier Castellano.
Last year, Castellano won five consecutive races on the third day of the 40-day meeting. On Sunday, day 3 of the 143rd Saratoga season, Castellano reeled off three consecutive winners, capped by a half-length-victory aboard Chorus Music in the $77,500 Irish Linnet Stakes for New York-bred fillies on the turf.
Ruler On Ice and Pants On Fire went in lockstep in a half-mile workout between races Sunday at Monmouth Park, after which trainer Kelly Breen pronounced both 3-year-olds ready to go next Sunday in the $1 million Haskell Invitational.
Head-and-head throughout, the pair went in 47.60 seconds over a fast track in completing their main preparations for the Grade 1 Haskell. The colts were separated by a nose on the wire, with Pants On Fire and jockey Elvis Trujillo on the inside and Ruler On Ice and jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. on the outside.
Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin’s top older sprinter, Trappe Shot, worked four furlongs in 48.20 seconds ion Sunday at Saratoga in company with Gallant Dreams in preparation for a start in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap on Aug. 7.
"He galloped out well, looked great doing it, just what we wanted,’’ McLaughlin said. "We’ll do this again next Sunday, weather permitting. We like where we are.’’
