After not offering the bet all meet long, the New York Racing Association will offer wagering on Gulfstream Park’s Rainbow 6 this Saturday, a card in which the entire pool must be distributed. Entering Thursday’s program, there was a $1.3 million carryover on the wager, which can be played for 10 cents.
The wager requires bettors to pick the winners of six consecutive races at Gulfstream. For most of the meet, the wager would only be paid out if there was one winning ticket.
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – When he isn’t looking after Uncle Mo and focusing on winning another Kentucky Derby, Todd Pletcher still finds time to win the occasional race or two. In fact, Pletcher won back-to-back stakes on the Blue Grass Stakes undercard last weekend at Keeneland, and a similar scenario might well unfold a week later on the Coolmore Lexington Stakes program.
Haynesfield, recently voted New York-bred Horse of the Year for a second consecutive year, is expected to make his 5-year-old debut in the Grade 3, $100,000 Westchester Stakes on April 30 at Belmont.
Toby Sheets, the assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen, said that Haynesfield is scheduled to have his final breeze for the Westchester on Saturday.
“We’d like to run there if everything is good,” Sheets said. “For a November to May layoff it’s not an easy spot.’’
STICKNEY, Ill. – The ranks of talented young Illinois-breds have been thin in recent seasons, but the two races for 3-year-olds on Saturday’s six-stakes Illinois-bred program at Hawthorne tell a different tale. In particular, the $100,000 Pretty Jenny for 3-year-old fillies attracted an attractive field.
“I wish I had this horse a different year,” said Richie Scherer, trainer of Our Lady in Red. “This is a tough race for Illinois-breds.”
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Terry Pompay admits she has dabbled playing Gulfstream Park’s 10-cent Rainbow 6 since the jackpot grew to more than $1 million a couple of weeks ago. What she did not know at the time was that her stable will be one of the keys for horseplayers trying to strike it rich when the entire pool is dispersed on Saturday.
Two one-mile divisions of the inaugural Oklahoma Stallion Stakes will be run at Will Rogers Downs on Saturday. The $50,000 divisions are for 3-year-olds bred in the Sooner State.
Heading up the colt and gelding race is multiple stakes winner Smiles Ahead. The son of Burbank will be making his first start of the year after a busy freshman campaign that saw him win four of eight starts, including the Prairie Juvenile against open company and a pair of Oklahoma-bred stakes at Remington Park in the fall.
CINCINNATI – The barn area at River Downs is being evacuated because of rising water from the Ohio River, with the track scheduled to open next Friday, April 29.
The backstretch of the one-mile oval is approximately 80 yards from the Ohio River when it is in a normal state, but if the Ohio crests at 56 feet on Saturday as predicted, the track and barn area will be covered with water. Heavy rain has hit the area in recent days, and flood stage is 52 feet. Approximately 400 horses who were on the grounds Thursday were to be be moved to nearby Turfway Park by 6 p.m. Friday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Liberal Arts may only be starting in the minor $70,000 Grey Memo Stakes on Saturday at Hollywood Park, and not in one of the four six-figure stakes on the card, but in a way is one of the most important runners on the California Gold Rush program.
Liberal Arts will be favored to win the Grey Memo Stakes, which is final leg of a 50-cent pick five and 50-cent pick four, part of three pick three bets, and the first leg of the day’s pick six. Liberal Arts could be a key selection in such bets.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. − When the 2-year-old filly Abide won her debut at Saratoga on Aug. 1, the first congratulatory phone call owner George Bolton received was from Jess Jackson. The same held true Dec. 26, when The Factor set a track record for six furlongs (1:06.98) at Santa Anita, beating, among others, the Jackson-owned Houston Harbor.
“That’s the type of guy he was,” Bolton said Thursday from Florida. “Not only would he call me about the horses he owned [with Bolton], he called me about the horses he didn’t own.”
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Eighty miles separate Keeneland and Churchill Downs – but for Silver Medallion, who runs Saturday in the Coolmore Lexington Stakes in an effort to make the field for the 137th Kentucky Derby, the more apt measurement is in dollars.