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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The sun finally broke through for the first time in more than a week Friday at Churchill Downs, but the racetrack still had some moisture in it and was rated good when opening at 5:45 a.m. before ultimately being upgraded to fast by the time the special 15 minute Derby-Oaks training session began nearly three hours later.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Mr. Commons, third in the Santa Anita Derby and all but ruled out of the Kentucky Derby due to insufficient graded stakes earnings, would have worked shorter than seven furlongs Thursday at Hollywood Park. But when Churchill Downs officials phoned trainer John Shirreffs earlier that morning to inquire about Mr. Commons’s status, Shirreffs called an audible.
“I wasn’t planning on going long with him,” Shirreffs said. “But when I heard how close it’s getting, I decided to work him long just on the off chance [he gets in].”
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The betting public had trouble separating the contenders in Thursday's Grade 3, $150,000 Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland - sending La Luna de Miel, Keertana, and Endless Expanse all off at 2-1.
Keertana had little trouble separating herself in the race itself, however, taking command in midstretch under jockey Jose Lezcano and coasting to a 1 1/4-length score over late-running My Baby Baby before a crowd of 10,957.
STICKNEY, Ill. – Saturday marks closing day of the Hawthorne winter-spring meet, the 10-race card looking much like the rest of a claimer-dominated season. Featured on the program is a first-level allowance, race 7, carded at 1 1/16 miles on the main track.
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INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The promise that Dubawi Heights showed in England as a 2-year-old in 2009, when she placed in two lucrative sales progeny races, finally surfaced in this country in the last six months.
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ELMONT, N.Y. – Having toyed with allowance foes twice since returning to the races off a lengthy layoff, Christmas for Liam gets the acid test Saturday when he takes on graded stakes winners Haynesfield and Soaring Empire in the Grade 3, $100,000 Westchester Stakes at Belmont Park.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Lasting Spice could be tough to handle when she makes her 2011 debut in a first-level $35,000 optional claiming race at Hastings on Saturday. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint for fillies and mares drew seven horses and will serve as the feature on the eight-race card that begins at 1:20 p.m.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – They are 3-year-olds with goals less ambitious than the Kentucky Derby. The King’s Bishop at Saratoga, perhaps even the Breeders’ Cup Sprint here in the fall, could be eventual landing spots for the best to emerge Saturday night from the Grade 3, $200,000 Derby Trial at Churchill Downs.
A solid cast of 11 fillies and mares, led by Truly Lucky, will assemble Saturday night at Evangeline Downs for the $50,000 Tellike Stakes, a five-furlong turf sprint.
Trained by Karl Broberg, the 5-year-old Truly Lucky comes into the Tellike off a sharp front-running score against high-level optional claming company over the Lone Star turf. She has won 5 of 10 starts over the last two seasons.
Gathering Dreams and Indian Ink, who finished one-two in this same race last year, will face last season’s 2-year-old Ohio-bred champion Startin Something in Saturday’s $50,000 Dr. T.F. Classen Memorial, the first stakes of the meet at Thistledown.
The six furlong race for accredited Ohio-bred fillies and mares drew a field of seven.