INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Courageous Cat, the winner of the Grade 3 Poker Stakes at Belmont Park on June 10 and three other stakes in his career, will be shipped to California for the $300,000 Shoemaker Mile on July 2, owner Marty Wygod said on Wednesday.
“That’s our current intent,” Wygod said. “He won the last race pretty easily. It seems to be a good spot for him. I think he would be the favorite.”
AUBURN, Wash. – Already well down the road to a possible return engagement in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Atta Boy Roy could make a detour to the Pacific Northwest for a start in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile on Aug. 21, trainer Valorie Lund said Tuesday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The versatile Hold That Echo should be a player in Friday’s seventh race at Woodbine, which is the first leg of a marathon starter allowance series.
The nine-furlong turf route is for fillies and mares who have competed for a claiming price of no more than $20,000 in 2010-2011, and it carries a purse of $51,400. Hold That Echo had a solid 2010 campaign, during which she won 4 of 9 starts and more than $70,000. She ran hot and cold on the grass last summer, which included a victory over $40,000 conditioned claimers.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Check Your Soul, impressive winner of the 1 1/8-mile Plate Trial on June 5, breezed five furlongs in 1:01.60 here Wednesday morning in preparation for Sunday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate.
A field of 16 or 17 is expected when the entry box closes at 8:30 a.m. Thursday for the Queen’s Plate, the 1 1/4-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds that is being run for the 152nd time.
Check Your Soul, under Patrick Husbands, went in company with older stablemate Simmard and exercise rider Darren Fortune.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Regardless on which surface it is run, Friday’s second-level allowance feature is a challenging handicapping puzzle.
The race is scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on the Widener turf course, and determining which of the five horses entered for the turf will make the lead is extremely difficult. There are also five horses entered in case the race is transferred to the dirt, and the probable favorite, Rocking Out, has thus far been suspect beyond sprint distances.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Trainer Tim Kelly was hoping to find an easier spot for Awesome Son when he entered him in the third-level, $50,000 claiming co-feature at Monmouth Park on Friday.
It didn’t work out that way.
The six-furlong race is as tough as the stakes races Awesome Son has contested recently.
The new week at Monmouth kicks off with a 12-race card topped by the pair of $54,000 races.
The co-feature offers identical optional claiming conditions for fillies and mares going one mile on the turf.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita soon will name a new track superintendent following the resignation of Richard Tedesco from the position he held during a tumultuous four years. Tedesco gave 30-day notice when he tendered his resignation in May. His final day at Santa Anita is Friday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty has been entered for Saturday's $150,000 Hollywood Oaks at Hollywood Park, days after trainer Bob Baffert removed her from consideration for Saturday's $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park because of a brief illness.
Plum Pretty was found to have a temperature on Monday but it had subsided within 24 hours, Baffert said. As a result, she was not flown to New York, and remained with Baffert's stable in California.
BOSSIER CITY, La. – Fiesty Day, a winner of two of his last three starts for trainer Bob Young, is the one to beat in Friday’s allowance feature at Louisiana Downs. A field of 10 Louisiana-breds looking for their first win outside the maiden or claiming ranks, or those entered for a $12,500 claiming price, will go a mile and a sixteenth on the grass.
Trey Agilar will once again be aboard Fiesty Day, and appears to be a major reason why the 5-year-old Storm Day gelding has returned to his winning ways. Fiesty Day has won five of his 14 career starts but was winless all of 2010.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Lady Sweetness will attempt to win her third consecutive start in a $55,000 allowance race over seven furlongs at Hollywood Park on Friday evening. The allowance race could lead to longer and more important races, if Lady Sweetness runs as well as she did earlier this year.
Trainer Mike Mitchell would like to start Lady Sweetness around two turns later this summer and envisions Friday’s race, the filly’s first start in three months, as a prep race.
