Stolis Winner, the all-time richest Quarter Horse, will meet recent Grade 1 winner Acorn in the Grade 2, $100,000 Bank of America Texas Challenge Championship at 440 yards Saturday night at Sam Houston Race Park.
On the line is a berth in the Challenge Championship at Los Alamitos on Oct. 29.
Acorn has won two stakes in his last two starts, the Grade 1 Challenge Championship Derby at Fair Grounds on Nov. 19, and the $140,000 Evangeline Downs Derby in his last start Dec. 10.
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. − Prince Will I Am exploded off the final turn to win the Grade 2 Mac Diarmida earlier this winter. Although he will be stretching out an additional furlong, to 1 1/2 miles, Saturday in the $150,000 Pan American at Gulfstream Park, his trainer, Michelle Nihei, sees no reason why he can’t do it again.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. – Both the Orphan Kist Stakes and the Ogataul Stakes, the $25,000, six-furlong co-features on Saturday at Fonner Park, will feature two-time defending champions – and it’s likely neither will be the favorite.
Two-time Ogataul winner Skwhirl returns in the race for older Nebraska-breds and will likely take second billing to Reach One More, a winner in 11 of his 14 career starts.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $75,000 Prima Donna for 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs at Oaklawn on Saturday is something of a springboard to different distance goals for leading contenders Gran Lioness, who was third in last month’s Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra, and Arienza, a daughter of Horse of the Year Azeri.
In all, a field of eight will go, including stakes-winning sprinter Lady Giacamo.
Ohio horsemen have agreed to terms with River Downs management as to the number of days the Cincinnati race track will run in 2011. Also in the agreement, signed by both parties Thursday, is the cancellation of both of the track’s premier races, the $100,000 Cradle and $50,000 Bassinet. The purse of each race was reduced by half in 2010.
River Downs will run 93 days in 2011, beginning April 29 and running through Sept. 5. There will be a five-day-a-week schedule, with Monday and Tuesday the dark days.
It is not uncommon for two sprinters to have similar characteristics, most notably speed. It’s just that Cash Refund and Early Return share more in common than most.
Both are brown geldings trained by Steve Margolis and owned and bred by the Klein family of Bert, Elaine, and Richard; both are stakes winners at Fair Grounds; and both are out of the same mare, Swept Away.
Trainer Assaf Ronen was to begin serving a seven-day suspension on Friday after one of his horses tested positive for a banned substance at Aqueduct last month. The suspension was reduced from 15 days for Ronen waiving his right of appeal.
Ronen was also fined $1,000.
Ronen was penalized for the finding of the drug flunixin, a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory, in the postrace sample of Sezzana, who finished third in the first race at Aqueduct on Feb. 19. Sezzana was disqualified from purse money and ordered unplaced.
Ronen is 3 for 19 at the Aqueduct inner track meet.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Fog shrouded the opening three furlongs of Dialed In’s final major prep for the Grade 1 Florida Derby on Thursday morning at Palm Meadows. But it was clear to see from the way the Holy Bull winner Dialed In finished down the stretch why trainer Nick Zito was smiling from ear to ear after the work.
Separate Bet has compiled a strong record at Remington Park through the years and his return to the Oklahoma City track Saturday night for the Grade 1, $100,000 Leo Stakes for Quarter Horses might help him recapture his best form. The 400-yard race drew 11 older horses, including Strike It Quick, who set a world record for 350 yards in a Sunland Park allowance in December.
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NEW ORLEANS – The pace scenario is in his favor, he already has a win over the track, and he looked great the second time he went past the stands when galloping Thursday morning here at Fair Grounds. For Mucho Macho Man (click link for Contender Profile), the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby on Saturday looks like a slam dunk.
