Unfortunately for bettors, there’s no post-Christmas 2-for-1 bargain available in Monday’s featured ninth race at Parx Racing.
Juan Vazquez, coming off a superb season at Delaware Park in which he led the trainer standings with 83 victories, will saddle the uncoupled pair of Bernadette’s Song and Ms Vanenzza in a 6 1/2-furlong sprint open to third-level allowance runners and $40,000 claimers. Both of Vazquez’s horses look like prime contenders in a field of seven chasing a $50,000 purse.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Just 24 hours after being pounded by heavy rain for the fourth straight day, Santa Anita’s new dirt main track was open for training Thursday on a partly cloudy yet blessedly dry morning, and was in such good shape that several prominent trainers, most notably Bob Baffert, worked their horses on it in a strong show of confidence.
Live streaming video and archives of race replays are now available on the Internet for the Charles Town Races.
The new service, which is free, is located under the racing tab on the West Virginia track’s website at www.hollywoodcasinocharlestown.com.
The race replay archive, also accessible through the same website, contains all races run at the track over the past two years.
The Florida Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering issued a license to Hialeah Park that will allow it to operate slot machines at the track. Hialeah is currently operating a 24-day Quarter Horse meet which opened Dec. 3 and runs through Jan. 24, 2011.
OLDSMAR, Fla. – Ayoumilove, winner of the Catcharisingstar Stakes at Calder in August, tops a strong field of 11 juvenile fillies entered for Sunday’s $75,000 Sandpiper Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs. Also Sunday, Jack Price Juvenile winner Manicero heads a group of 11 juvenile males entered in the $75,000 Inaugural. These two stakes highlight a 10-race card solely for 2-year-olds.
Ayoumilove is one of four stakes winners in the Sandpiper. Trained by Jose Pinchin, she will be shooting for her fourth win from seven outings.
ARCADIA, Calif. – While the return of a dirt surface could make it easier to find winning horses at Santa Anita this winter, an increased cost of wagers could make it more difficult to find winning horseplayers.
Santa Anita Park opens for its 71st race meet Sunday, and, once again, it is a whole new world in California.
The problematic artificial main track at Santa Anita is gone, replaced with a natural surface of sand, silt, and clay. And so welcome back front-runners to a surface that track project manager Ted Malloy expects will reward fast horses.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will get just one chance to make a first impression this winter, so in addition to the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes on Sunday, there are three other stakes on the opening-day card, including the Grade 1 La Brea, the female equivalent of the Malibu, a $250,000 race, for 3-year-old fillies going seven furlongs on dirt.
Noconi will have a lot of momentum Sunday, when he seeks his fourth consecutive graded stakes win in the $350,000 Championship for Quarter Horses at Sunland Park.
The 400-yard race is the final Grade 1 of the year for Quarter Horses, and Noconi enters fresh off becoming a millionaire in the $150,000 Zia Park Distance Championship on Dec. 5. His chief rival is Stolis Winner, who last month became the all-time richest Quarter Horse.
The $200,000 Lone Star Derby is going green. The race will be run on turf for the first time next year as part of a 19-race, $2.1 million stakes schedule that was released by Lone Star Park officials Wednesday. The meet will begin April 14.
The Lone Star Derby, which lost its Grade 3 status for 2011, will have a fresh look next season. In addition to being moved from dirt to turf, the 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds will be run as part of the annual Lone Star Million Day program on May 30. This past meet, the Lone Star Derby – won by Game on Dude – was held May 8.
ARCADIA, Calif. − A return to dirt racing at Santa Anita will have a profound effect on the West Coast’s major preps for the May 7 Kentucky Derby. For the first time since the winter of 2006-2007, horses will not have to leave this circuit in order to see if they can handle dirt. But the level of competition here has gotten a bit tougher, too, because the new dirt surface has lured the best Derby prospects of trainer Steve Asmussen, who has a string at Santa Anita that in years past would have been at Fair Grounds.