LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike, unraced since finishing sixth in the June 11 Belmont Stakes, will ship within the next few days to Churchill, where he will be sent through two works before moving to Saratoga for his next start in the Aug. 27 Travers.
Rich Strike had a five-furlong breeze in 1:03 Tuesday at the Mercury training center on the outskirts of Lexington, Ky.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It appears the precious commodity of time will enable Churchill Downs to host its first Arlington Million Day as planned.
All systems are go for Aug. 13, when four of six stakes on an 11-race Churchill card will be run over the turf course, which has had sufficient time to stablize after going unused since June 10. Nominations were released Tuesday for those stakes, led by the Grade 1 Arlington Million and Grade 1 Beverly D.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – For all the winning that trainer Steve Asmussen has done – he has compiled a record 9,846 wins and counting through Tuesday – there are some losses that stick with the Hall of Fame trainer.
The defeats Epicenter suffered in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness earlier this year are two of them.
“I’ll never get over them,” Asmussen said here earlier this week. “Never. Never. Never. I’m not over Curlin’s Derby, I’m not over Creator’s Derby. Why would I be over Epicenter’s Derby?”
An unraced 2-year-old colt reared, fell, and was fatally injured following routine training at Los Alamitos on Tuesday morning, after which the track issued a press release detailing the events owing to a social-media firestorm that erupted because the horse was trained by Bob Baffert.
Rapacious, a colt by Into Mischief, “was humanely euthanized following an unfortunate post-training accident that occurred as he was on his way back to the stable area at Los Alamitos Race Course,” the release said.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Soothsay has not run in more than a year, but she worked so well on Sunday morning that trainer Richard Mandella said he was likely to bring her back against the likes of defending race winner Shedaresthedevil in the Grade 1, $400,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes on Aug. 6 at Del Mar.
Soothsay, 4, has won three times in four starts, including the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks – in only her second start – and the Grade 3 Indiana Oaks, which marked her last race, on July 7, 2021.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Mandaloun, winner by disqualification of last year’s Kentucky Derby, was scheduled to arrive at Del Mar on Wednesday for the Grade 2, $300,000 San Diego Handicap on Saturday, for which a terrific field of older horses was entered Wednesday morning.
In addition to Mandaloun, to be ridden by Florent Geroux, the San Diego field was expected to include Country Grammer, Defunded, Express Train, Parnelli, Royal Ship, Senor Buscador, Stilleto Boy, and Tripoli.
SARATOGA, N.Y. - The imposing presence of Jackie’s Warrior made it a formidable task for the racing office to fill Saturday’s Grade 1 Vanderbilt. But a couple of horses with South Florida ties, Ny Traffic and Willy Boi, came to the rescue, their connections looking forward to the challenge while acknowledging that defeating the reigning sprint champion over a track he’s so relished in the past would be considered an upset of major proportions.
John E. Mooney, the executive director of racing at Delaware Park, will retire as of Aug. 1 after a 40-year career as a racing official at tracks across the mid-Atlantic, the track has announced.
Mooney first came to work at Delaware as the track’s general manager in 1984 and later served stints in management at the Maryland Jockey Club and as an executive with a group that sought to establish a racetrack in Virginia, an effort that led to the opening of Colonial Downs. Mooney returned to Delaware Park in 2008 as the track’s executive director of racing.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The farrier Ray Amato Sr., a member of the International Horseshoeing Hall of Fame, died Monday at his home in Florida due to cancer. He was 88.
Amato began working as a farrier in 1949 at Aqueduct. His roster of clients included many of the legendary horsemen of the turf including Hirsch Jacobs, Bobby Frankel, Laz Barrera, Frank “Pancho” Martin, and Todd Pletcher.
