LEXINGTON, Ky. - Air Support led for only one jump when Keeneland opened its 15-day meet Friday with the 1 1/16-mile Transylvania Stakes - but it was the one that counted.
With Rajiv Maragh urging him down the center of the turf course, Air Support was up to nail the race-long pacesetter, Great Mills, to capture the Grade 3, $100,000 Transylvania by a nose. He returned $23.20 to win.
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $7,000 that trainer Bob Baffert spent to acquire an old broodmare he remembered as a racehorse has not only produced the best runner he has ever bred but also one of the leading handicap horses in North America.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The handicap division is wide open this year, and two horses who could have a say in things as the season progresses, Trappe Shot and Tizway, both turned in sharp workouts Friday morning at Palm Meadows.
Trappe Shot, working in company with stablemate Alyarf, went five furlongs in 1:00.60. Tizway earned the bullet after completing the distance in 1:00.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Life At Ten, who received more publicity for a race she didn’t win last season than the two Grade 1’s she did, will finally get a chance to make some news again on the racetrack when launching her 2011 campaign going a mile under optional claiming conditions in Sunday’s fifth race at Gulfstream Park.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Blind Luck and Rachel Alexandra both parlayed Fantasy victories into Kentucky Oaks gold in their next starts. The connections of Joyful Victory and Arienza would love to see their fillies do the same. They are the top choices in this year’s Grade 2, $300,000 Fantasy, which will be run Sunday at Oaklawn Park.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Allowance conditions in the spring condition book at Keeneland sometimes are written so that top-class horses returning from their winter breaks don’t necessarily have to rush right into the breach. That would seem the case Sunday, when the feature on one of the rare stakes-less programs of the 15-day meet drew a few fillies and mares likely to spend the rest of their year competing for black type.
Del Mar will run 42 stakes at its upcoming summer meeting, which runs from July 20 to Sept. 7. The purses of four major stakes have been reduced by $50,000 each from the 2010 meeting, while 11 overnight stakes have been increased by $10,000.
The richest race of the meeting will be the $1 million TVG Pacific Classic for older horses on Aug. 28, an important prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The Pacific Classic program will also feature the $250,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes for sprinters and the $200,000 Del Mar Handicap on turf.
Though Rattlesnake Bridge was on the same flight that brought Uncle Mo from south Florida to New York, that’s as close as his connections want to get to the defending 2-year-old champion for the near future.
While Uncle Mo will run in Saturday’s $1 million Wood Memorial, Rattlesnake Bridge is being pointed the Grade 2, $150,000 Jerome here on April 24.
“We feel it might be the right spot,’’ trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said. “It’s a great spot, it’s a one-turn mile. If we were to run big or win it maybe we could run in the Preakness.’’
When Harissa won the Langhorne Stakes by four lengths on March 29 at Parx Racing, it was initially designed to be a prep for the Grade 1 Humana Distaff at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day.
The connections have called an audible and will now point the multiple stakes-winning filly to the Grade 2, $150,000 Shuvee Handicap at Belmont on May 21. The Shuvee is run as a one-turn mile.
Hushion said the Shuvee was chosen of the Human so to not “put her through all the stress of Derby Day.’’
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – As one of the elite races on the calendar for fillies and mares, the Apple Blossom tends to draw its share of champions. That should again be the case this year as trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Friday that Blind Luck will likely make her next start in the Grade 1, $500,000 race at Oaklawn.
“I’m planning on it,” Hollendorfer said of next Friday’s Apple Blossom. “But I’m waiting on the weights.”
