ELMONT, N.Y. - Buoyed by longshot Hooligan's Delight, Wednesday's pick-six at Belmont Park returned a healthy $308,963 to 11 bettors who were savvy enough to come up with the winning combination. None of the winning tickets was sold ontrack.
There were 995 consolation tickets (5 of 6), each returning $763.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Air Support, who won the Grade 3 Pilgrim Stakes here last fall, returns to Belmont Park for Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Hill Prince Stakes going one mile.
The Hill Prince, restricted to 3-year-olds, drew a field of nine.
The mile may be a little short for Air Support, who needed every inch of the Keeneland stretch to run down Great Mills in taking the Grade 3 Transylvania going 1 1/16 miles on April 8. He then finished a late-running third behind Banned and Close Ally in the Grade 2 American Turf on Derby Day at Churchill Downs.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Conspicuous by its absence from the Stephen Foster Day program is the Fleur de Lis Handicap, a longstanding major race for fillies and mares. Churchill officials put the Fleur de Lis on hiatus for a year, with the intention of bringing it back so as to keep its Grade 2 status. (The North American Graded Stakes Committee allows a race to be skipped one year, but no more, to maintain a grade.)
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Todd Pletcher entered three horses in Saturday’s Grade 1, $250,000 Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont Park including the enigmatic Life At Ten, who won this race last year. Pletcher also entered Awesome Maria, who has won three stakes this year, and Super Espresso, winner of the Grade 3 Allaire duPont Distaff in her last start.
The race also drew defending Breeders’ Cup Ladies' Classic winner Unrivaled Belle, graded stakes winner Payton d’Oro and Absinthe Minded.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Maybe a change of surface will revive Midnight Interlude’s season.
After winning the Santa Antia Derby in an upset on April 9, Midnight Interlude was a bust in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, finishing 16th in the Kentucky Derby and 13th in the Preakness Stakes.
Owner Arnold Zetcher and trainer Bob Baffert skipped the Belmont Stakes, and brought Midnight Interlude back to California. Friday evening at Hollywood Park, Midnight Interlude makes his turf debut in the $70,000 Tsunami Slew Stakes over a mile.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Al Stall Jr. won the Stephen Foster Handicap last year with Blame, but the 49-year-old trainer refrains from making unfair comparisons when it comes to Apart, the colt he will run Saturday in the Foster.
Blame earned a divisional championship while banking more than $4.3 million for Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, and with Apart having earned only a fraction of that ($640,018) for Dilschneider, Stall is content to focus strictly on what Apart might be able to accomplish in the coming months.
There has been an influx of Michigan trainers and riders to Thistledown this year following the closing of Pinnacle Race Course. Four of the former Michigan trainers are in the top 10 in the standings, including leader Robert Gorham who has 10 wins. Michigan regulars Ronald Allen Sr. and Richard Rettele each have 4 wins and Laura Jackson has 3.
In the jockeys’ race, Michigan rider Federico Mata leads the pace with 19 winners from 73 mounts. Perennial local riding leader Luis Gonzalez is second with 12 wins from 47 rides.
Catlaunch won the $50,000 Gendelman last Saturday for the third straight year at River Downs. It was also the third straight year that the mile and a sixteenth event was taken off the turf course and run over the main track.
The Gendelman was the 21st stakes victory for the now 10-year-old Catlaunch, who has now won 37 of 86 starts and earned $983,000.
Trainer Ivan Vazquez said the old gelding’s future is up to him.
It’s Me Mom is ready for next Tuesday’s $100,000 Satin and Lace after beating older fillies and mares in the allowance prep for the stakes.
“It was the first time she faced older horses and I wanted to see how she would handle them,” trainer Lynne Scace said. “Considering the outcome, I would say she did fine.”
It’s Me Mom led from start to finish while winning the prep by 2 1/4 lengths over Presque Isle’s Tapeta track. The race was at the same 5 1/2-furlong distance as the Satin and Lace.
“She absolutely loves this surface,” Scace said.
Humble Smarty is coming off a track-record performance at Canterbury Park and may make his next start in a six-figure stakes. Not bad for a horse who was orphaned at birth and slow to get the hang of the racing game.
In 2004, his dam, Humble Danzig, died during foaling and Humble Smarty was unable to stand and nurse. His trainer, Brett Creighton, was present at the foaling while working for owner/breeder James Danaher and hand-nursed him until he could take his milk from a bucket.
“I was his mother, really” Creighton said.
