Trainer Paul McGee has kept at least a handful of horses at Fair Grounds over the winter for more than a half-decade, but this year McGee is wintering his entire string in New Orleans for the first time. And for the first couple months of the Fair Grounds season, that wasn’t working very well.
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DRF Past Performances
The $50,000 Island Fashion for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on Sunday should produce some New Mexico-based candidates for the $200,000 Sunland Park Oaks on March 27.
Angel at Home will be making her two-turn debut in the Island Fashion at Sunland after defeating a number of her eight rivals in the track’s $50,000 El Paso Times on Jan. 23. She closed from next to last for the win, which was her third from four career starts.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Sunday’s $100,000 Sensational Star Handicap at Santa Anita may provide an answer in the career direction of Dancing in Silks, the upset winner of the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
Dancing in Silks is winless in his last five starts, and makes his first appearance for trainer Kathy Walsh in the Sensational Star, a race restricted to California-breds. The race is scheduled for about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course, but wet weather could force it to be run over 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Dublin will miss a few weeks of training due to a recent illness, and the development will push his seasonal debut back to at least April, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said. The goal for Dublin’s return is the Grade 2, $350,000 Oaklawn Handicap on April 9.
“At this point, that’s what we’re targeting,” Lukas said Friday.
Dublin, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful in 2009, had been training right along for his first start since finishing fifth in last year’s Preakness. He was on schedule to return to action at Oaklawn in the middle of March, Lukas said.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Dialed In, sensational winner of the Grade 3 Holy Bull in just his second career start, worked five furlongs in 59.75 seconds at Palm Meadows on Friday under exercise rider Maxine Correa. The drill was the first for Dialed In since Feb. 11.
“He worked great and looked really good doing it,” said trainer Nick Zito. Correa, the trainer said, “had plenty of horse.”
KENTUCKY DERBY NEWS: Track all the 3-year-olds on the Triple Crown trail
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sunday’s Grade 3 Canadian Turf lost its feature attraction when trainer Christophe Clement opted not to enter three-time Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti as originally planned.
Clement was hoping to use the one-mile Canadian as a prep for Gio Ponti’s main goal this spring, a return to Dubai for the $10 million World Cup. The 2010 turf champion finished fourth, beaten just more than a length, in last year’s World Cup.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Wind Caper, who tried two turns twice to no avail earlier this winter, turns back to six furlongs and heads a field of five fillies and mares in Sunday’s $60,000 Patty’s Positive overnight stakes at Aqueduct.
In mid-December, Mike Hushion stretched out Wind Caper following a pair of blowout sprint victories in the fall. She was sent off as the favorite in the Sky Beauty overnight stakes at a mile and 70 yards, and ran off to an eight-length lead through enervating fractions on the far turn before succumbing late to wind up third.
Blue Laser will make his 3-year-old debut next Saturday, March 5, after shipping north from Florida to run in the $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.
Winner of the Grade 3 Grey Stakes last October over the synthetic surface at Woodbine for owner WinStar Farm and trainer Mark Casse, Blue Laser will be making his first start since failing to finish in the Nov. 20 Delta Downs Jackpot.
“The colt will ship midweek from Ocala,” Casse said. “I’ve trained him some on the dirt at Palm Meadows, and I don’t think he handles it as well as the synthetic.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Society’s Chairman, who earned himself a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Mile after nearly upsetting champion turf horse Gio Ponti in the Grade 1 Shadwell Mile last fall at Keeneland, will find the opposition a bit easier when he kicks off his 2011 campaign Sunday at Gulfstream Park in the $150,000 Canadian Turf. The Grade 3 Canadian will be decided at one mile over the outer turf course.