LEXINGTON, Ky. – Not that one has anything to do with the other, but when a full field of 14 3-year-old fillies ran last fall in the Raven Run Stakes at Keeneland, the Grade 2 race was dominated by huge longshots.
Whether a similar bombs-away scenario is in store Saturday with the 12th running of the $250,000 Raven Run remains to be seen, but once again, the stakes limit of 14 is entered in the seven-furlong Polytrack race – and this one looks like it also could produce a wild result.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Trainer Mike Puype spent part of Tuesday evening watching a replay of the Grade 1 Ancient Title Stakes at Hollywood Park from Oct. 9, a race in which his horse Supreme Summit finished a fast-closing second.
The Breeders’ Cup Classic is worth considerably more than the Breeders’ Cup Mile, no more so than in the case of Gio Ponti, who is under consideration for both races. The Mile is on his preferred surface, turf, on which he’d have to face Goldikova. The Classic is on dirt, a surface over which he’s never competed, and on which he’d have to face Zenyatta, Blame, and Quality Road.
Sidney’s Candy’s turf career consists of exactly one race, and man, was it a corker. In the La Jolla Handicap on Aug. 14, Sidney’s Candy contested a furious early pace, left his exhausted speed rival behind on the far turn, and proceeded to run like a wild horse to the finish, setting a Del Mar course record for 1 1/16 miles.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Tiz West and Meteore were stakes winners in their 3-year-old campaigns in 2008 and 2009. It’s racing against older horses that has been difficult.
Both are winless this year for trainer Richard Mandella, but are considered leading candidates in Friday’s seventh race at Hollywood Park, a one-mile optional $80,000 claimer on turf. A win on Friday could lead to a start in the $250,000 Citation Handicap here on Nov. 27.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – First-time Luis Contreras has been a profitable angle of late, and Lemon Twirl will have the talented rider on her back for the first time in a race in Friday’s sixth, a third-level optional claimer that is scheduled for seven furlongs on the grass.
Contreras was only allowed to ride for American connections at Woodbine until recently, when he got the paperwork completed that permits him to ride for everybody. This will be his first mount for John Mattine, who trains Lemon Twirl for owner George Robertson.
Freaky’s win in the $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship last Saturday was not as fast or as flashy as his win in the same race in 2009, but the performance was quick enough and good enough to confirm his status as the leading older Quarter Horse in the nation.
Freaky had a seven-race winning streak end with a second-place finish to A Tempting Dash in the Go Man Go Handicap on Sept. 10, Freaky’s first start since February. The win in the Los Alamitos Championship indicated that the 5-year-old gelding needed a warmup race to return to top form.
Trainer Wayne Catalano’s barn has been a hotbed for 2-year-old fillies the last several years, and little has changed heading into next month’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs. Catalano could have as many as two starters in the Nov. 5 race that he won last year with She Be Wild, and in 2006 with Dreaming of Anna.
“We’ll try for a third one,” said Catalano.
Sure, the Breeders’ Cup Classic has a purse of $5 million, which makes the $1 million purse of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile look rather paltry by comparison. But the 1 1/4-mile Classic also has a Formidable Foursome to overcome in Zenyatta, Blame, Quality Road, and Lookin At Lucky. The Dirt Mile has … well, it doesn’t have horses like that.
But it isn’t the disparate level of competition that has trainer Richard Mandella leaning “80 percent” toward the Dirt Mile over the Classic with Crown of Thorns. What does is distance and timing.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Arguably the best 3-year-old turf fillies in North America ran last weekend in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland. Just six days later, the Grade 3 Pin Oak Valley View will be run here Friday as the proverbial little sister to the QE II, and its cast of characters is one to match.