OLDSMAR, Fla. – Count the Change, fresh off a winning effort last time out against similar company, will meet Judy Patootie, a six-time career winner who makes her first start of 2011, in Saturday’s 6 1/2-furlong optional claiming headliner at Tampa Bay Downs.
Count the Change has raced at five different tracks in her last 10 starts but seems most comfortable at Tampa where she has scored two of her three career wins.
AUBURN, Wash. – Potential is the word in the seventh race Saturday at Emerald Downs. A five-furlong dash for 3-year-old maidens, the race attracted nine entrants, several with intriguing back stories, and while potential is a polite way of saying you haven’t done anything yet, no one will be surprised if some of Saturday’s runners graduate to stakes competition in the very near future.
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Factor has dictated the pace in all three of his dazzling victories. Whether he will be able to do so again Saturday in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby is the central question surrounding the 1 1/8-mile race that closes out the meet at Oaklawn Park.
Chris Englehart and John Davila Jr. have long been the dominant trainer-and-jockey combination at Finger Lakes. Englehart has been the track’s leading trainer for eight straight years and owns 10 titles overall. Davila has finished as Finger Lakes’s leading jockey for nine straight seasons and 11 times overall. But as the track in western New York prepares to launch its 50th season Saturday, there could be some new competition to the long-reigning kings of the hill.
Delta Downs in Vinton, La., will open for a 46-date Quarter Horse meet on Saturday night. The season will run through July 3.
Delta will offer 27 stakes worth more than $1.5 million. The first is Saturday night, with the running of the $50,000 John Alleman Memorial. Some of the bigger offerings during the meet include the Firecracker Futurity and Firecracker Derby on July 2, and the Louisiana Showcase program July 3.
Mighty B Valiant was a standout winner during two full cards of trials for Saturday night’s $780,000 Remington Park Futurity, and if he runs back to his 2 1/4-length romp he should be tough to contain in what is the richest statebred futurity offered to Quarter Horses.
The Remington Park Futurity is restricted to Oklahoma-breds for the first time this year. There were 24 trials for the 330-yard race between April 2-3. The five fastest qualifiers from each card earned a spot in the finale.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Management at Hastings is hoping less takeout from the parimutuel pools will equate into more betting when the 2011 meet opens Saturday. Hastings is reducing the takeout to 15 percent on its win, place, show, and pick-four pools. Previously, the takeout on win, place, and show wagers was 17.3 percent and 22.3 percent on pick-four bets.
Miss Bullette can become one of the first 2-year-old stakes winners of the year Saturday, when she starts as the probable favorite in the $75,000 Copper Top Futurity at Sunland Park.
The 4 1/2-furlong race is restricted to fillies bred in New Mexico.
Three fillies and mares who were closely matched during the winter in Florida will challenge horse-for-the-course Sweet Goodbye in Saturday night’s $250,000 Sugar Maple Stakes at Charles Town.
The seven-furlong Sugar Maple (race 9) is part of a six-stakes card that culminates with the Grade 3, $1 million Charles Town Classic.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Marty Wolfson has entered three Farnsworth Stable horses for Saturday’s $60,000 South Beach Stakes, but it’s Cherokee Queen who will garner the majority of the attention if she starts in the final regularly scheduled event on Gulfstream Park’s 2011 stakes schedule.