INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Zenyatta was breathing easily when she walked off the Hollywood Park main track after breezing five furlongs in 1:02.60 on Thursday.
Jockey Mike Smith, sitting atop the undefeated winner of 19 races, beamed as he assessed the 6-year-old mare’s first workout since a win in the Grade Lady’s Secret Stakes on Oct. 2.
“I wanted to see her energy level and her action,” Smith said. “She was full of it. She did all the work in the last eighth. It was very handy.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Trainer Ken McPeek won the $150,000 Jessamine Stakes for the second straight year when Kathmanblu, ridden by Julien Leparoux, proved clearly best Thursday at Keeneland in the 20th running of the 1 1/16-mile turf race for 2-year-old fillies.
Kathmanblu, owned by Five D Thoroughbreds and Wind River Stables, earned her way into the Nov. 5 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf by rallying from ninth to post a four-length triumph in the Jessamine, part of the BC's Win and Your In. program.
"I had kind of a wide trip, but she still won easy," said Leparoux.
MIAMI – A year ago, Mambo Meister used a victory in the Grade 3 Spend a Buck Handicap as a springboard to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, in which he finished fifth. He will return to defend his Spend a Buck title Saturday at Calder, although perhaps without the same ambitious goal in mind.
A 1 1/16-mile race, the Spend a Buck is once again a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and is one of five stakes on the undercard for Saturday’s Festival of the Sun program at Calder.
Gotta Have Her, a six-time stakes winners from the ages of 3 to 6, has been retired following a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Abu Dhabi First Lady Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 9, trainer Jenine Sahadi said on Thursday.
Gotta Have Her ends her career with 10 wins in 30 sta rts and earnings of $1,132,608. She will be offered for sale at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in Kentucky on Nov. 7. Owned by Green Lantern Stable, Gotta Have Her remained in Kentucky after the First Lady Stakes.
"She is officially retired," Sahadi said.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Boys At Tosconova provided another reason to get excited about his showdown with Uncle Mo in next month’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs by working a sensational six furlongs in 1:10.90 on Thursday morning at Aqueduct.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer David Donk isn’t as concerned with what type of turf Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Athenia Stakes at Belmont Park is run on, just that it simply is run on the turf at all.
“We don’t run if it comes off,” Donk, who has Strike the Bell entered in the Athenia.
While the forecast in the New York area for Saturday is for dry weather, the forecast for Thursday night into Friday was for between one and two inches of windswept rain. Belmont’s turf was already listed as yielding for Thursday, a card in which two races were transferred to the main track.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Trainer Bruce Alexander had the post-position blues after the draw for the $70,000 College of New Jersey Stakes for fillies and mares on Saturday at Monmouth Park.
Lady Alexander, the star of his stable this summer, landed the rail – rarely a good spot going six furlongs at Monmouth.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – All of the prep races for the 2010 Breeders’ Cup are in the books. Well, almost all. The timing of the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, set for Saturday at Keeneland, might be cutting it a bit close, but if Evening Jewel runs like she has all year long, she will still be able to meet up in Louisville with all the other Breeders’ Cup prospects who had their final preps in the last few weeks.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The E.P. Taylor Stakes generally attracts several European fillies and mares, lured by the 1 1/4-mile turf race’s Grade 1 status and $1 million purse. But the European influence in Saturday’s renewal of the race is unprecedented − no fewer than eight of the 10 entrants will be European shippers.
“It looks like I’m representing all of North America,” said Roger Attfield, the locally based trainer who will send out Miss Keller and Mekong Melody.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Bridgetown returns to Woodbine on Saturday in the $500,000 Nearctic Stakes, and the rapid 3-year-old should be prominent throughout the six-furlong turf sprint. Along with first money, the winner of the Grade 1 event will receive an automatic berth in the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs.