LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Successful Dan is expected to be the starting highweight for the Grade 1, $500,000 Clark Handicap on Friday at Churchill Downs. An impressive winner of the Fayette Stakes last out at Keeneland, Successful Dan will carry 121 pounds, including jockey Julien Leparoux, in the 136th running of the 1 1/8-mile race.
Dakota Phone, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, actually is listed as the Clark highweight with 124 pounds but will not be returning from California to run.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - An ontrack crowd of 15,583 turned out Friday for the only night racing card of the 21-day Churchill Downs fall meet. Track officials said beforehand they did not know what to expect, and although they were prepared for as many as 25,000, they said they were very pleased with how the evening went, considering that temperatures dipped into the low 40s. The attendance nearly tripled the 5,363 that turned out for the comparable Friday afternoon card held in 2009.
There were two records set in Friday night’s Grade 1, $350,000 Challenge Championship for Quarter Horses at Fair Grounds. The first was by Feature Jess Rockin, who won the 440-yard race in a track-record time of 21.26 seconds. The other came from Stolis Winner, whose third-place finish pushed him past Refrigerator’s all-time earnings mark.
ALBANY, Calif. – Golden Gate Fields canceled it scheduled card for Wednesday, Nov. 24, because of insufficient entries.
The track will be open that day for simulcast wagering from Churchill Downs, Aqueduct, Hawthorne, Portland Meadows, Penn National and Woodbine.
Racing will be conducted on Thanksgiving Day Thursday with a first post of 11:15 a.m.
ALBANY, Calif. – Jockey Michael Martinez, paralyzed from the waist down in a Sept. 12 fall at Golden Gate Fields, was discharged from the Santa Clara Valley Rehabilitation Center in San Jose on Friday.
Martinez’s agent Dennis Patterson, who has been with the injured rider daily since his spill, picked him up and drove him to his home in San Pablo near the Golden Gate Fields racetrack.
Off his breeding, El Kingdom would appear to be a better horse on grass than dirt, being by El Prado out of the Dynaformer mare Rabiadella and a half-brother to the graded turf stakes winner Diadella. But thus far that has not been the case.
Jockey Chin Yang, 43, registered his 1,000th career win at Finger Lakes on Friday when he guided 14-1 longshot Confided to a gate-to-wire in the sixth race.
A native of Bangkok, Thailand, Yang began his career in 1989 at River Downs, and has been a Finger Lakes regular since 2003. Of his 1,000 wins, 403 have come at Finger Lakes.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Victor’s Cry won the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile here in May in a career-defining win. Unfortunately for owners Bob and Michele Billings and trainer Eoin Harty, Victor’s Cry’s three subsequent starts have been less satisfying.
After a decent second in the Grade 1 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar, Victor’s Cry was ninth in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile and fifth in the Grade 2 Oak Tree Mile at Hollywood Park last month. Those results will make him an outsider in an ultra-competitive running of the $250,000 Citation Handicap on turf next Saturday.
Churchill announced Friday that overnight purses for the final eight days are being bumped 20 percent, marking the second increase in a week.
The track increased purses by an average 6.3 percent on Nov. 12. The hikes are being attributed to higher than projected wagering from all sources since the 21-day meet began Oct. 31.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Expectations are sky-high for 2-year-old filly Turbulent Descent, a potential star that makes her second career start Sunday in the $100,000 Moccasin Stakes at Hollywood Park.
Based on a deceptively easy debut victory, Turbulent Descent will be favored over Zazu and four others in the seven-furlong stakes. If Turbulent Descent repeats her crushing debut, the Moccasin could be history.
