LOUISVILLE, Ky. – They will scatter like the wind after the fall meet ends Sunday at Churchill Downs, departing for Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and elsewhere. The horses, that is. One will even leave Monday morning on a van bound for New Mexico, completing a storybook circle that began a little more than 18 months ago.
MIAMI – St. Maximus Gato has come a long ways in a short time. He may go even farther before the year is out if trainer Donald Hunt elects to run his still lightly raced 3-year-old in the Grade 3 Fred W. Hooper Jr. Handicap here at Calder on Dec. 11.
With stakes runners on both coasts, trainer Rick Dutrow has decided to remain in New York for the holiday weekend, dispatching brother Chip to Hollywood Park, with, among others, Cloneylass, whose experience and promising United States debut make her a prominent contender in the Grade 3, $100,000 Miesque Stakes for 2-year-old fillies on Sunday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Handicappers of New York racing should pay close attention to Sunday’s feature at Aqueduct because – save for the extra half-furlong – it is likely to be replayed throughout the winter when the inner track opens on Wednesday.
If the subsequent editions of the second-level optional $50,000 claimer are as competitive as Sunday’s offering, horseplayers certainly won’t mind seeing this race run with regularity. A field of 13 was entered for the race, which will be run at the seldom-used distance of 6 1/2 furlongs – a distance that can’t be run over the inner track.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – It looked like an act of desperation by trainer Jamie Lloyd when he entered Fantastic Pick in a $50,000 claiming race at Del Mar during the summer. The colt had lost his first four starts in this country, with a third in an optional claimer as his only placing.
The decision to try Fantastic Pick in a claimer was a calculated risk, but one that turned out to be the springboard to an autumn milestone, with possibly more to come.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Not that it has been a bad year for Dale Romans. Not at all. Among other successes, there has been the emergence of Paddy O’Prado and First Dude, both of whom have distinguished themselves while contributing substantially to another year of more than $5 million in stable earnings.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Reade Baker, who won the 2009 Display Stakes with Bear’s Hard Ten, will send out Bear’s Future and Moonshine Mullin in Sunday’s Display, a 1 1/16-mile event for 2-year-olds at Woodbine Racetrack
Bear’s Future was the leader of the local 2-year-old division late in the summer. A son of freshman sire Rockport Harbor, Bear’s Future crushed a modest field in his seven-furlong debut Aug. 13. A month later, he took the seven-furlong Swynford Stakes by 3 1/2 lengths, with a Beyer Speed Figure of 75.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Mark Casse will be leaving on Monday for Florida, where he has stalls at Palm Meadows and owns Moonshadow Farm in Ocala. And, Casse will be heading out with the certain knowledge that he will be Woodbine’s leading trainer in both races won and money won for the fourth straight year.
Casse had won 83 races and $4.6 million heading into Friday’s program. His previous bests were 85 wins and $5.76 million, in 2007.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Dundalk Dust, a 3-year-old Illinois-bred filly who was last of six down the backstretch, blew away her five older rivals with a sensational stretch run Thursday in a rain-soaked 95th running of the Grade 2, $161,250 Falls City Handicap at Churchill Downs.
