OCEANPORT, N.J. – Get Serious got little out of his first start, a disappointing effort his camp hopes to quickly forgive and forget.
The 7-year-old Get Serious was one of the heroes of Monmouth Park last summer, winning a trio of Grade 3 turf stakes: the Monmouth, the Oceanport, and the Red Bank. His only loss here last year came in the Grade 1 United Nations Stakes where he gamely set the pace in a race beyond his distance scope at 1 3/8 miles.
OCEANPORT, N.J. − The New Jersey boys of summer will assemble once again for the $65,000 John J. Reilly Handicap, even though some are now decidedly long in the tooth.
The Reilly shares top billing Saturday at Monmouth Park with the $70,000 Lamplighter for 3-year-olds on the turf. The 12-race card kicks off the Memorial Day weekend, which includes cards Sunday and Monday. First post is 12:50 p.m. on all three days.
A six-furlong race for statebreds, the Reilly is an early-season fixture at Monmouth and the first major event for New Jersey-breds since last fall.
A new set of shoes have helped Louisiana Senator burst to the top of the Quarter Horse charts this year. To retain his No. 1 ranking among the nation’s older horses, he will have to defeat an elite field Saturday night in the Grade 1, $250,000 Remington Park Championship.
The 440-yard invitational is part of program of seven stakes that includes the Grade 1, $1,029,950 Heritage Place Futurity. The races make for the richest card of the Remington meet that will close on Monday.
ALTOONA, Iowa – With the June 24-25 Iowa Festival of Racing approaching, Saturday evening’s stakes at Prairie Meadows, the $60,000 Wild Rose and the $60,000 Jim Rasmussen Memorial, serve as the local preps for two of the Festival’s key events.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tom Proctor isn’t what you would call radical, even slightly liberal. But that doesn’t mean he won’t step outside of the box once in a while, as he will do Saturday at Churchill Downs when he pits his star turf mare, Keertana, against nine male rivals in the 74th running of the Grade 3, $100,000 Louisville Handicap.
“We’ll see how smart I am, huh?” Proctor said with a laugh.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s a Friday night in Louisville. The crowd is ready to party. The lines at the bar are 10-deep. The music is soaring. Young men and women in their best clubbing clothes are crowded around the stage as the singer from a local band belts out Weezer’s famously plaintive refrain:
“Say it ain’t so-a-woah-woah!”
It’s a sentiment that racing purists might agree with. Because this scene isn’t from Louisville’s hottest nightclub. It’s from Churchill Downs, the sport’s most iconic racetrack.
They have combined to win 22 of 46 starts, including 15 stakes. Midway through their 6-year-old seasons, Tar Heel Mom and Sweet Goodbye are as good as they have ever been. Saturday, the two consistent sprinting mares meet for the first time in the $250,000 My Juliet Stakes at Parx Racing.
Tar Heel Mom and Sweet Goodbye appear to tower over their four rivals in the My Juliet, run over the main track at six furlongs.
At six furlongs, Tar Heel Mom would appear to have an advantage over Sweet Goodbye, who has done her best work at seven-eighths.
AUBURN, Wash. – Lou Tice hit paydirt once. Now, perhaps, he’s done it again.
Tice’s first serendipitous turn in racing took place in September 2005, when he spent $16,000 at Keeneland for a Jump Start yearling named Assessment. The second came four years later, shortly after Assessment raced to an upset victory in the Pacific Northwest’s only graded race, the $300,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs.
