Calder Race Course has raised its purses for the second time in the last seven weeks, boosting overnight purses 5 percent effective with Thursday’s program. Calder had originally raised purses 7.5 per cent on June 3.
The latest increase will be applied to base overnight purses and excludes stakes, Florida Owner Awards, and maiden special weight races. The owner awards and maiden special weight races were both increased last month.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Hollywood Hit is back on track.
Canada’s champion sprinter in 2010, Hollywood Hit recorded his fifth career stakes victory Wednesday in the 6 1/2-furlong Bold Venture.
With regular rider Jim McAleney in the irons, Hollywood Hit broke on top but then settled in second behind Essence Hit Man before taking charge entering the stretch and holding off Signature Red for a three-quarter-length victory.
”He ran good; we just let him run his own race,” said Terry Jordan, who trains the 5-year-old Hollywood Hit for owner Peter Redekop,
In Excess, one of the most successful California sires of all time, has been pensioned at age 24 because of age and declining fertility, according to the farm where he stood, Vessels Stallion Farm in Bonsal, Calif.
The sire of Indian Charlie, who stands for $70,000 in Kentucky, In Excess has sired 62 stakes winners and 16 California-bred champions. In addition to Indian Charlie, whose biggest win came in the 1998 Santa Anita Derby, In Excess sired Grade 1 winners Musical Chimes and Romance Is Diane. In California, In Excess is the all-time leading sire by money won.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith was left so enthused by a five-furlong workout from Mr. Commons at Hollywood Park on July 13 that he was tempted to describe the colt as the “new Lure,” a reference to the two-time Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Smith rode in the early 1990s.
ALTOONA, Iowa – The $100,000 Prairie Meadows Handicap, run for only the second time, returns Saturday evening. The race drew an intriguing field of seven seasoned route horses, five of whom will be attempting the 1 1/4-mile trip for the first time.
A pair of six-furlong stakes for Minnesota-bred 3-year-olds, the Frances Genter for fillies and the Victor S. Meyers for colts and geldings, headline the first Saturday at Canterbury Park since the Minnesota state government closure cost the track 12 racing dates and forced the postponement of six stakes races. Track officials plan to reschedule the stakes later in the meet.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Awesome Maria, among the leaders in a very deep distaff division, will miss the remainder of the year after suffering a condylar fracture of her left foreleg, trainer Todd Pletcher said Thursday.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Monmouth Park has postponed its Friday card to Monday because of the intense heat wave gripping the East Coast. The forecast for the Jersey Shore calls for Friday temperatures to hit 99 degrees with a heat index of 105.
The Friday program will be shifted in its entirety to Monday, normally a Monmouth dark day.
No meaningful relief from the heat is forecast until Sunday. No decision has been made on the status of the Saturday card.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Grade 1 races have not been kind to Caracoratado this year.
Caracortado lost the Grade 1 Kilroe Mile by a head at Santa Anita in March and the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile by a neck July 2. He has been so close that he seems on the verge of a breakthrough, which may finally come in Saturday’s $300,000 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar for co-owners Don Blahut and trainer Mike Machowsky.
“He’s done great down here,” Machowsky said earlier this week. “He’s put on weight and he’s done everything right.”
