ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Bear’s Chill will try to regroup off his fade job in the Plate Trial Stakes this Saturday at Woodbine in the $150,000 Achievement, a six-furlong stakes for Ontario-bred 3-year-olds.
Bear’s Chill looked like a contender for last Sunday’s Queen’s Plate following his back-to-back front-running scores in a pair of seven-furlong sprints, most notably in the Queenston Stakes, where he earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 97.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Is Niigon’s Touch ready for the bright lights of the Bison City?
The Bison City, of course, is Buffalo and the stakes of that name was more logically situated at Fort Erie, where it was run from 1954 through 1976 and from 1980 through 2006.
Be that as it may, the $250,000 Bison City will be run here at Woodbine on Sunday, and Niigon’s Touch will be looking to score her third victory in as many career starts while trying stakes company for the first time in the 1 1/16-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies.
FORT ERIE, Ontario – Quarter Horses return in spades to Fort Erie on this July holiday weekend for the Festival of Racing.
Ten races are on the schedule for Saturday, followed by mixed cards of Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses Sunday and Monday. Tuesday will feature the standard eight-race Thoroughbred card.
Eric Johnston, Quarter Horse racing secretary for this weekend meeting and again for the October schedule, arrived last Sunday from Houston to set up the action. He is looking forward to some competitive races.
Pigtails should appreciate the class relief when she runs in a first-level allowance race for fillies and mares at Hastings Saturday. The 1 1/16-mile feature drew seven horses, and only Pigtails and One Bad Romance are winners at the distance.
City Route has several advantages over her rivals in Saturday’s $50,000 Juan Gonzalez Memorial Stakes at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif. She is the only stakes winner in the field of six 2-year-old California-bred fillies; she appears to have the most speed in the race; and she drew the outside post, which should allow jockey Kevin Krigger to ease her to the front in the 5 1/2-furlong race.
Jim Meyaard trains three of the eight horses entered in the $50,000 Spangled Jimmy Handicap at Northlands Park Saturday. From a pure numbers viewpoint, Meyaard has a 37.5 percent chance of winning the one-mile feature for 3-year-olds and up. Considering Salt Flat Speed is one of the three horses, Meyaard’s odds of winning the Spangled Jimmy for the second year in a row are considerably higher.
Retama Park on Friday night will launch a three-tiered meet that runs through Oct. 15. The first leg is a 10-date season for Quarter Horses, through July 28. There will then be 14 dates of mixed racing, from July 29-Aug. 27. Retama then moves into 21 days of Thoroughbred racing starting Sept. 1.
Retama is racing Quarter Horses for the first time since 2008, after its last two Quarter Horse meets were run at Sam Houston. Purses are projected to average about $60,000 a program, and horsemen have been supportive.
Jockey Bobby Walker Jr. will be based at Louisiana Downs for the first time in more than a decade later this month, when he moves his tack to the track following the close of the Lone Star Park meet July 10. Walker had annually been one of the top riders in Bossier City, La.
“I won my first career race at Louisiana Downs, and my 2,000th win was at Louisiana Downs,” he said. “I grew up about 85 miles down the road from there, in West Monroe.”
Shotgun Gulch will soon head to Hollywood. The Grade 1 winner based at Lone Star Park is scheduled to ship out Sunday morning for Southern California, where she will run in the Grade 2, $200,000 A Gleam Handicap for fillies and mares at seven furlongs July 16.
“I’ll haul her out there,” said C.R. Trout, who bred, owns and trains Shotgun Gulch. “I’ve got a new trailer. It’s got air conditioning in it. It’s air-ride. It will be an easy trip for her.”
