Harold Wyner, a smalltime trainer who got back into the game last season after a five-year absence, claimed four horses during 2010. Two that he paid $25,000 apiece to acquire went a collective 0 for 3 and another, a filly named Even Better who was grabbed for $15,000 a month ago, has yet to run back.
Those new acquisitions have yet to pay off, but Wyner cashed in handsomely when he put up $15,000 in October to take the colt Billy One Lite on behalf of Ted Hoover.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – “Can you get me the long range forecast for Florida Derby Day?”
That was a smiling Kiaran McLaughlin’s first comment in the winner’s circle after his 3-year-old prospect Soldat had skipped through the slop to a convincing 10 3/4-length victory over Cool Blue Red Hot and five other 3-year-olds in Friday’s nine-furlong allowance feature. The performance thrust Soldat, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf runner-up, right into the thick of any current discussion regarding potential Kentucky Derby candidates.
Laurel Park will raise purses for its overnight purses beginning Feb. 2, thanks to an influx of revenue from slot machines at Hollywood Casino Perryville and The Casino at Ocean Downs.
Under the revised purse structure, daily purses will increase an average of $26,000 daily to $186,000, a 16 percent rise from $160,000 at the beginning of the meet on Jan. 1.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Keeping Soul Candy at home for Saturday’s $300,000 Sunshine Millions Turf at Santa Anita is more appealing to trainer Paddy Gallagher than a road trip to Gulfstream Park for a lucrative race on the same day.
Soul Candy could have been on a plane to Florida this week for Saturday’s $500,000 Sunshine Millions Classic on the main track, but a lack of experience on that surface, or any dirt track for that matter, and the gelding’s success on turf in recent months led Gallagher to remain at Santa Anita.
NEW ORLEANS – Albarado, Bridgmohan, and Theriot are the best-known names among the Fair Grounds jockey colony. James Graham is Mr. Steady As You Go. Rosie Napravnik and Miguel Mena are comers. And none of them is leading the meet in wins as of Jan. 21. On top of the standings is one Richard Eramia, and pretty much nobody – certainly not Eramia himself – would have expected it when the 2010-2011 season began in late November.
Trainer Nick Zito scratched Dialed In, his top 3-year-old prospect, out of Friday’s featured ninth race less than three hours before post time due to the sloppy racetrack. Zito said he would likely run Dialed In, a son of Mineshaft, back in the Grade 3 Holy Bull a week from Sunday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. − Gleaming and Stephanie Got Even will be seeking their fifth straight wins Sunday, when they step into stakes competition for the first time in the $50,000 American Beauty at Oaklawn Park.
Their task will not be easy. The American Beauty, a six-furlong race for fillies and mares, drew Decelarator, a multiple stakes winner at Oaklawn who in her last start was second in the Grade 2 Raven Run at Keeneland; Bella Diamante, a stakes winner last out at Delta Downs; and Vertical Vision, who faced males in a Remington Park stakes in December.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A few years ago, owner Roddy Valente and trainer Bruce Levine campaigned the talented but fragile New York-bred colt Bustin Stones through a 6-for-6 career capped by a victory in the Grade 1 Carter Handicap in April 2008.
Valente and Levine are back with the New York-bred filly Lots of Stones, who on Sunday seeks her sixth consecutive victory – from seven career starts – in an open company second-level allowance race at Aqueduct. Lots of Stones and Bustin Stones are not related.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Three weeks later and a furlong shorter than planned, top turf mare Eclair de Lune returns Sunday as the class of the field in the $75,000 Megahertz Stakes at Santa Anita.
A Grade 1 winner last summer for owner Richard Duchossois and trainer Ron McAnally, Eclair de Lune was scheduled to return Jan. 1. But wet weather interrupted her training from Dec. 9 to Dec. 30, and McAnally scratched her from the Grade 2 Robert J. Frankel at 1 1/8 miles.
Texas Tempest might get an ideal pace setup Sunday when she makes her stakes debut in the $50,000 El Paso Times at Sunland Park. And that’s not all she has going for her in the 6 1/2-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies. Texas Tempest also is the best bred runner in the field as a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Purge.
