GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Thirtyfirststreet won his turf debut and going around two turns for the first time in his career on Monday, when he outgamed Close Ally approaching the wire in the $200,000 Lone Star Derby.
The race was one of six stakes worth a collective $1 million on Lone Star Park’s annual Million Day. The card is the richest program of Thoroughbred racing in Texas.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Denomination edged Unbridled Essence by a nose Monday in the $150,000 Violet Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf at Monmouth Park.
Joe Bravo was aboard for trainer Christophe Clement as Denomination ($4.20) got her sixth career win. It was the second Grade 3 win of the season for the 5-year-old mare, to go along with her victory in the Hillsborough at Tampa Bay Downs.
ELMONT, N.Y. - No pace proved no problem for odds-on favorite Winter Memories, who raced closer to the front than is her custom yet still was still able to deliver the same devastating stretch to kick to win Monday's Grade 2, $150,000 Sands Point Stakes by three lengths at Belmont Park. Celestial Kitten, the longest shot on the board at 19-1, rallied to get second by three-quarters of a length over Parting Woods. She was followed in the order of finish by Naples Bay, Mystical Star and Arch Support.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Wasted Tears proved to be the undisputed class of the Grade 3, $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff at Lone Star Park on Monday, when she won the race for the third straight year in her first start in six months. She cruised home by five lengths, her largest winning margin in the one-mile turf race that she initially won in 2009.
MIAMI - Motovato gave every indication he’s back on top of his game again after holding off defending champion Mambo Meister through the stretch to register a one-length victory in Monday’s $75,000 Memorial Day Handicap at Calder. Jackson Bend, the even-money favorite, finished third. The Memorial Day lost its Grade 3 status this year.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Awesome Feather, the undefeated 2-year-old filly champion of 2010, took another step towards making a comeback from a bowed tendon when she worked a solid half-mile in 48.12 seconds Monday morning over Belmont Park’s main track.
It was the second work in six days for Awesome Feather, who on May 24 went three furlongs in 36.78 seconds, also at Belmont.
Now in the barn of Chad Brown, Awesome Feather still has a long way to go to prove she can make it back to the races at a high level, but so far she has impressed her new trainer.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Stakes winners Resentless and Jacally will both return from an extended layoff on Wednesday night at Woodbine in the $125,000 Ballade Stakes, a six-furlong sprint for Ontario-sired fillies and mares.
Resentless has been sidelined since finishing up the track in last year’s Woodbine Oaks in June. She had won her previous race convincingly following a winter hiatus, the seven-furlong Fury Stakes.
Trainer Ian Howard said little went right with Resentless after she became ill in the spring of 2010, and her woes have continued this year.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine management was caught between a rock and a soft place here Sunday morning. To turf, or not to turf – that was the question. And when the beating of the drums had ceased, the Connaught Cup was kept on the grass and the eight-horse field was cut in half.
The Connaught Cup, a seven-furlong race, was run over a course rated soft and the winner was Stormy Lord.
Trainer Rick Hedge is looking forward to watching Embellished make her first start of the year in an optional-$40,000 claiming race for 3-year-old fillies at Northlands Park on Wednesday.
The champion 2-year-old filly in Alberta last year, Embellished has been training forwardly for Hedge and figures to be the first or second choice in the six-furlong sprint that drew five horses. Post time for the first mid-week card of the meet is 6 p.m. Mountain.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – If the Beverly D. Stakes were contested on Arlington’s all-weather racing surface, Pachattack would be the horse to beat. The Beverly D., of course, is a turf race, but Pachattack still has that Aug. 13 race as her major summer goal, according to trainer Gerard Butler.
