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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.
ELMONT, N.Y. – There are defining moments in every athlete’s career, and jockey Eddie Castro had several before the age of 21. At 18, he won the 2003 Eclipse Award as North America’s leading apprentice. In June 2005, two months after he turned 20, Castro won nine races on a single card at Calder. At 21, Castro pulled off an upset in the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Mile aboard 24-1 shot Miesque’s Approval.
AUBURN, Wash. – After a few lean years for trainer Margo Lloyd, there’s hope in 2011 for a breakthrough, maybe even a long-awaited stakes victory. Her stable star, You Me and Ema B, a 4-year-old filly, will make her second career start Saturday at Emerald Downs, and if she can build off a scintillating maiden victory last summer, Lloyd might be onto something big.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The first program of the spring meet at Churchill Downs has always been cause for celebration, and why not? Spring is in the air, the horses are back in town, and most importantly, the Kentucky Derby is only a week away.
Still, opening day under the old Twin Spires has always been somewhat subdued. Not any more: Churchill will open Saturday with a glitzy night program for the first time in track history, an innovation that will try to give new meaning to breaking swiftly from the gate.
Opening day at Delaware Park will serve as an appetizer for the main course that will soon follow.
After a five-month break, live racing resumes Saturday with a 10-race card – nine for Thoroughbreds and the finale for Arabians – as Delaware launches its 74th season with festivities that include carnival-type activities and food in the picnic grove that overlooks the picturesque paddock. But there will be a one-week wait for the first stakes action and a little bit longer than that for the return of last year’s leading jockey, Rosie Napravnik.
