The 1-2 finish by Bourbon Bay and Champ Pegasus in Monday’s $150,000 San Marcos Stakes over 1 1/4 miles on turf might have been the first in a string of meetings by the two horses in the remaining turf marathon stakes of the meeting.
Trainers Neil Drysdale (Bourbon Bay) and Richard Mandella (Champ Pegasus) said they will point their horses to the $150,000 San Luis Obispo Handicap over 1 1/2 miles on turf on Feb. 19, a race that Bourbon Bay won last year.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Blind Luck and Dakota Phone, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer’s leading horses, may not start again at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.
Frustrated by what he perceives as the speed-biased nature of the track’s sand-and-clay surface, Hollendorfer said he may not start Blind Luck again at the Santa Anita meet after she was second in the Grade 2 El Encino Stakes on Sunday, her first start since a second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic at Churchill Downs in November.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Rogue Victory already won a third-level optional claiming race last summer at Saratoga. With a little luck, he probably could have won another opening week at Gulfstream Park when having to settle for second money following a slow start.
Trainer George Weaver will wheel his hard-knocking grass specialist back on short rest under similar optional claiming conditions in Thursday’s $57,000 main event. A very competitive field of nine, plus one main-track-only horse, was entered to go a mile on the grass.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Mike Smith had just finished a workout aboard Crisis of Spirit at Santa Anita on Jan. 13 when he shouted an ultimatum to trainer Bob Baffert, who was watching from trackside.
“I want her back,” Smith yelled to Baffert. “She used to be mine.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita began adding sand to its main track last weekend, a procedure that was scheduled to conclude on Tuesday and one designed to replace material lost during severe rainstorms in the last month, track president George Haines said.
The track sustained 15 inches of rain in late December and early January. No rain has fallen since Jan. 3.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Call it the Bourbon Bay slam.
Monday, Bourbon Bay won his fourth turf stakes in the last year at Santa Anita in the $150,000 San Marcos Stakes over 1 1/4 miles on turf. In 2010, Bourbon Bay won three consecutive Grade 2 stakes from February to April – the San Luis Obispo, San Luis Rey and San Juan Capistrano handicaps.
The Grade 2 San Marcos on Monday was Bourbon Bay’s second race since the San Juan Capistrano last April, suggesting that the 5-year-old gelding is back in peak form.
In all of 2010, Laysh Laysh Laysh raced just four times. But he has already run three times in the new year and seems to be flourishing with all the activity.
Racing for the third time in nine days, the 6-year-old Laysh Laysh Laysh rallied from next-to-last to capture Monday’s $50,750 Native Dancer Stakes at Laurel Park.
Prior to shipping to Maryland, Laysh Laysh Laysh finished a close second in an optional claimer and came back last Thursday to win for a $60,000 tag, both at Aqueduct.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Caleb’s Posse faced the distance question heading into the $100,000 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park on Monday and he answered it emphatically when he burst through the fog to win the one-mile race by 2 3/4 lengths over Dreaminofthewin. It was another five lengths back in third to Bluegrass Bull.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Using a sharp break from the gate that was lacking in his loss to Royal Currier at Parx Racing last month, Fort Hughes rolled to an eye-catching 4 3/4-length victory in Monday’s $65,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct.
Royal Currier, who defeated Fort Hughes by a head in the Southampton Stakes on Dec. 21, chased Fort Hughes all the way around the track but had to settle for second, 2 3/4 lengths ahead of Rift. Bravo Romeo, Running Tap, and Bambi Bound completed the order of finish. Fort Hughes paid $4.80.
NEW ORLEANS – The post position draw for the Grade 3, $100,000 Lecomte, the anchor to Fair Grounds’s first big stakes day of the season on Saturday, did not take long. Only five horses were entered in the Lecomte, the first of three graded stakes races for 3-year-olds to be run at this meet.
