INGLEWOOD, Calif. – While the drive to Hollywood Park from Santa Anita is only 35 miles, the differences between the Los Angeles-area racetracks are greater than a simple crosstown jaunt.
After a long winter at Santa Anita, spring begins Thursday at Hollywood with reasons for optimism including a purse increase in claiming and starter-allowance levels, and a reduced takeout (14 percent) pick five wager. For handicappers, the initial adjustment is obvious.
Graded stakes winner Quantum Miss padded her resume with an easy victory over five other 3-year-old fillies in Tuesday’s $75,000 Trevose Stakes at Parx Racing.
Ridden by Cornelio Velasquez for trainer Tony Dutrow, Quantum Miss ($3.20) was making her first start since taking the Grade 3 Cicada at Aqueduct a month ago. She is now 4 for 6 lifetime, including three stakes.
Racing over a track downgraded to good, Quantum Miss led wire to wire, posting fractions of 21.74 and 44.50 seconds en route to covering the six furlongs in 1:10.62.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Thursday’s second-level optional $50,000 claiming feature at Aqueduct shapes up as a potential key race whether the one-mile race is run around two turns on grass or out of the chute on the main track.
Among the seven entered for turf, four would be making their first start of the year, most notably Hockley and Saint Eligius.
Sidney's Candy will skip the Grade 3 Inglewood Handicap on turf Sunday at Hollywood Park, and instead return May 7 in the Grade 2 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap on the main track, trainer John Sadler said. Sidney's Candy will race for the first time since winning the Grade 3 off-turf Sir Beaufort on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita. He will take the place of Sadler-trained Twirling Candy in 1 1/16-mile Mervyn LeRoy. Twirling Candy popped an abscess and missed a week of training.
All three Kentucky Derby prospects currently training at Palm Meadows – Dialed In, Soldat, and Pants On Fire – were on the track simultaneously galloping early Tuesday morning.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – It would have been quite a novelty, if not an all-out sideshow. But the trainer who was scheduled to give 72-year-old Jean Cruguet a leg up in a Thursday race at Keeneland has reconsidered, and now Cruguet is waiting for a more appropriate time and place to make a one-race comeback in the saddle.
Cruguet was named to ride Ratoath Special in the seventh race Thursday, but he will be replaced by Jesus Castanon, according to the filly’s trainer and co-owner, John Paul Pucek.
Jockey Martin Garcia, who was involved in a one-horse spill in Sunday’s third race at Santa Anita, is expected to ride Thursday’s opening day of the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting, his agent, Jim Pegram, said on Tuesday.
Garcia was aboard Tokubetsu when the 3-year-old broke down while leading a sprint for maidens. Garcia was not hospitalized – he was examined in first aid and cleared – and did not ride the remainder of his mounts on Sunday. The 26-year-old rider took off Monday and Tuesday morning and did not ride workouts, Pegram said.
Thursday evening’s racing at Lone Star Park is largely devoid of quality, with eight of the nine races being claiming or maiden claiming contests, and the other race being a 2-year-old dash for Texas-bred straight maidens.
But by Saturday much better horses will be filling the Lone Star Park starting gate, when the track stages one of its best racing days of meet, capped by the Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile and two other stakes.
It is looking increasingly doubtful that Jaycito will make his scheduled appointment in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, in which he would have been one of the top choices.
