HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Larry Jones, the sequel, might be better than the original.
A high-profile trainer, Jones is making his comeback during the Oaklawn Park meet that opens on Friday. He had retired in November 2009, but after clearing up a complex health issue that had dogged him for a while, he has resumed training a 36-horse stable.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark.– Oaklawn Park has one heck of an act to follow when it opens its 56-date meet on Friday.
The track is coming off a 2010 season in which the winners of two legs of the Triple Crown prepped at Oaklawn. Super Saver took the Kentucky Derby one start after being edged by Line of David in the first Grade 1 running of the Arkansas Derby in 20 years. Lookin At Lucky, meanwhile, launched his Preakness-winning season in the Rebel.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Daniel Centeno is making the most of his mulligan. A jockey since 1990, Centeno tried riding in the United States in 1996 and went a dismal 2 for 85 before going right back home to Venezuela.
“I was at Calder and couldn’t do any good,” said Centeno.
The illustrious career of the champion Stylish Jess Br is far from finished.
The 6-year-old earned another year of racing following her victory in the $100,000 Charger Bar Handicap at Los Alamitos last Saturday. The win ended a three-race losing streak and led owner Benny Rosset and trainer Paul Jones to plan a 2011 campaign.
Jones described Stylish Jess Br’s one-length win in the 400-yard Charger Bar as a “big deciding factor” in whether there would be a 2011 campaign. He said that Rosset “got excited about running her some more. She’s been sound and healthy.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Barry Rose is pointing Joanie’s Catch for the Sunshine Millions Distaff at Santa Anita on Jan. 29. She will prep for that assignment Friday at Gulfstream Park as a key contender in a talent-rich field of eight fillies and mares entered in the ninth race, a fourth-level optional $100,000 claimer at one mile.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Though live racing is canceled at Aqueduct on Wednesday, the building will be open for simulcasting, New York Racing Association officials announced Wednesday morning. The Belmont Café will also be open and will offer wagering on Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs among other signals.
Internet and telebet wagering will also be available on out-of-state signals.
Trainer Lisa Merritt will try to continue her Fair Grounds winning streak when Seans Silverdancer starts in the Silverbulletday Stakes on Jan. 22 in New Orleans. Merritt won with the last horse she shipped in to Fair Grounds, a maiden named Cartoonist. Cartoonist also happens to be the only horse Merritt has shipped to Fair Grounds. And that was back in December 2003.
“It’s been a long time,” Merritt said Tuesday, reached as she was driving to New Orleans from Kentucky.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - With a winter storm expected to dump as much as a foot of snow in the New York Metropolitan area, Wednesday’s nine-race card at Aqueduct has been canceled, New York Racing Association officials announced Tuesday afternoon.
Internet and telebet wagering will be available on out-of-state signals with NYRA electing to wait until Wednesday morning before deciding whether to open Aqueduct and the Belmont Café for simulcasting.
Live racing at Aqueduct is expected to resume on Thursday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:30 p.m.
Considering trainer Neil Howard’s strong start to the Fair Grounds meet – six winners from 18 runners – it’d be mistaken to say ill fortune has hovered over his stable. But weather-wise, Howard’s developing 3-year-olds have not had much recent luck. The promising colt Prime Cut was entered main-track-only in Sunday’s entry-level-allowance opener, and didn’t get to run when the race remained on turf. Not long afterward, the skies opened and grass racing was scrapped during the rest of the card and on Monday, too.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Shine Upon, whose love affair with Queens continued when she won at Aqueduct for the fifth time in as many starts four weeks ago, breaks from the rail and is the one to beat under leading rider Ramon Dominguez in Thursday’s $60,000 Leecoo overnight stakes.
Shine Upon, a handy two-move winner of last month’s Jena Jena, will take on nine other New York-bred fillies and mares in the one-mile Leecoo, among them my Dinah, Fivefifteen, and Ouchy Night, who finished second, third, and fourth behind her last time.
