INGLEWOOD, Calif. − In the hours before entries were taken for the Grade 2 Oak Tree Derby last month, trainer Ben Cecil scrambled to find a rider. He wound up with Martin Garcia, who rode Sebastian Flyte to a fourth-place finish, losing by three-quarters of a length.
Sebastian Flyte will start in Sunday’s $250,000 Hollywood Derby, and this time Cecil had no trouble finding a jockey well in advance. Joel Rosario, who through Sunday led the jockey’s standings at the fall meeting, has the mount.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Steve Attard and Mike DePaulo are brothers-in-law and brothers in arms in the training ranks here at Woodbine Racetrack.
And while both Attard and DePaulo already are moderately satisfied with their results at the 2010 meeting each has one major item on their wish lists for the final two weeks, which began with Wednesday’s program.
Steve Attard, 48, has his sights set on his stable reaching $1 million in purse money.
Due to poor track conditions caused by freezing temperatures, Portland Meadows has canceled live racing for Tuesday. Racing is scheduled to resume on Wednesday, with first post at 12:40 p.m.
With temperatures expected to rise over the holiday weekend, the second annual XpressBet Jockey Challenge is still on tap for next Monday.
The West Virginia Racing Commission has approved Charles Town’s request to race 235 days in 2011 – the same as this year.
In its year-long meet that runs Jan. 4 to Dec. 30, Charles Town will conduct live racing five days a week, but will condense its schedule to four times a week between June 8 and Sept. 6.
The track will be open Tuesday through Saturday from January through April, then switch to a Wednesday through Sunday schedule starting in May.
You wouldn’t want to compare Cathy’s Crunches to Blind Luck, the likely winner of this year’s Eclipse for 3-year-old fillies, but there are some similarities.
Both won their debuts at Calder and both were then privately purchased by trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and Mark DeDomenico.
Blind Luck is a multiple Grade 1 winner, but Cathy’s Crunches did something Saturday that her more accomplished stablemate has never attempted when she beat males in the Golden Nugget.
Trainer Steve Specht’s fall meeting at Golden Gate Fields has been a lot like the racing career of his entrant in Friday’s Grade 3, $100,000 All American, Massone.
Specht has five wins from his first 28 starters. But he also has 12 seconds and three thirds.
Massone has earned $477,342 during his 24-race career, but he has only two wins to go with six seconds and eight thirds.
MIAMI – Steve Dwoskin accomplished a lifelong goal during the 2010 Calder meet – winning his first ever trainer’s title to go along with yet another owner’s championship. He did it with an assortment of claiming horses and a few allowance types mixed in.
The fastest sprinter in the history of Illinois racing, age-defying Coach Jimi Lee, hasn’t actually raced in Illinois since June 2009, but the 10-year-old gelding is scheduled to make his first Hawthorne appearance in more than two years when he starts in the featured sixth race on Wednesday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Though stakes action doesn’t begin until Thanksgiving, four allowance races, topped by a pair of open-company, $48,000 races at one mile, are on tap Wednesday as the final week of racing on the main track gets underway.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Six of seven remaining graded stakes on the 2010 New York Racing Association calendar are to be run this week, beginning with the $100,000 Fall Highweight Handicap, the traditional Thanksgiving Day feature, followed by the $150,000 Top Flight Handicap on Black Friday, and Saturday’s quartet of the Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile, Gazelle, Remsen, and Demoiselle.
