Barry Irwin, the president of the Team Valor International syndicate that owns Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, and Dale Romans, trainer of Preakness winner Shackleford, got into a friendly war of words during a media event in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Irwin opined that he was “not concerned at all about Shackleford” in the Belmont Stakes.
“Mucho Macho Man is the horse I’m worried about,” Irwin said.
Gourmet Dinner, one of the many 3-year-olds bumped from the Triple Crown trail by injury this spring, is on his way back to the racetrack.
Gourmet Dinner, who won three stakes at 2, including the Grade 3 Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs, was expected to arrive Thursday at Saratoga, where he will now be trained by Bruce Brown and prepared for a late summer/fall campaign. Brown is the son-in-law of Bill Terrill, the managing partner of Our Sugar Bear Stable, which owns Gourmet Dinner.
Wasted Tears could be taking her show to Chicago.
One of the nation’s top turf mares, she won the Grade 3, $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff Mile at Lone Star Park for the third straight year on May 30 while making her 2011 debut, and is now being strongly considered for next month’s Grade 3, $150,000 Modesty at Arlington Park.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Stephen Foster Handicap would do well to duplicate the thrilling finish of the Alysheba Stakes. The top six horses in the Alysheba were separated by less than a length on the wire, and Churchill Downs racing officials are expecting as many as four of those, along with one more Alysheba starter, to be back here next Saturday, June 18, when the Grade 1 Foster is run for the 30th time.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Jimmy Baker stable has cooled off after a red-hot start to the Churchill Downs spring meet, but that was inevitable. Nobody can sustain the 80-percent pace he set by winning with 4 of his first 5 starters, although Baker said he sure would have liked to.
“It was a nice little tear we went on,” said Baker.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Last fall, after Sarah’s Secret won her first two races in promising style, trainer Kathy Walsh decided she had seen enough. She gave the filly the winter off, planning for a resumption of racing this spring.
“She needed to grow and needed some time,” Walsh said. “She was getting a little wound up.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – With morning-line favorite Francesco Rules an expected scratch, Thursday’s $60,000 Kelly Kip overnight stakes at Belmont Park will match up four 2-year-olds coming off front-running maiden wins at out-of-town tracks.
Two of them – Threeanddonedan and Suntorious – invade for Maryland-based trainer John Salzman Jr. after winning in the slop at Pimlico and Penn National.
MIAMI – Manicero is arguably the most significant of the 30 horses entered in the four stakes races to be decided on Saturday’s Summit of Speed Preview program at Calder. He also may be the most surprising of those entries.
