Dowagiac Chief’s five-length romp in the Black Gold Stakes for 3-year-old grass horses Saturday yielded a career-best 88 Beyer Speed Figure. Now a three-time winner from six grass starts, Dowagiac Chief, if all goes well, runs back in the $400,000 Transylvania Stakes on April 8 at Keeneland.
“He was able to control things from start to finish Saturday,” said trainer Tom Amoss. “The question is what is he going to do when he moves into a race with more serious competition in it.”
That trainer Bret Calhoun has a horse for the Fair Grounds Oaks comes as no surprise, but Calhoun’s intended starter in the Louisiana Derby is less well known.
Kupuna finished second to Cyberknife in a highly rated first-level dirt-route allowance race on Feb. 19 at Fair Grounds and will get a chance March 26 in the $1 million Louisiana Derby, Calhoun said Monday. Kupuna won an Oaklawn maiden race two starts ago and earned a career-best 82 Beyer Speed Figure last month.
The least known undefeated graded-stakes winner in America is back on the work tab, gearing up for her 2022 campaign.
Carribean Caper has started five times and won five times, with each victory by at least a length. She capped her 2021 season with a six-length romp in the Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes on Sept. 25 before getting a good long rest preparing for her 4-year-old season. Carribean Caper worked an easy three furlongs Saturday at Fair Grounds, her second breeze since rejoining trainer Al Stall’s string of horses in New Orleans after spending several months in Camden, S.C.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A number of top 3-year-olds were out for serious work last weekend, led by Smile Happy, who went a half-mile in 49 seconds on Saturday at Gulfstream in his first work since a runner-up finish in the Risen Star on Feb. 19. Trainer Kenny McPeek is still choosing between the Florida Derby on April 2 or the Blue Grass on April 9 for the Runhappy colt’s next start.
Also, White Abarrio breezed a half-mile on Sunday in 47 seconds at Gulfstream in his second work since winning the Holy Bull on Feb. 5.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The lucrative Santa Anita Handicap program on Saturday was an expensive day for several jockeys who were fined for whip violations.
Victor Espinoza, who rode Express Train to a win in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, and Ricky Gonzalez, who rode Leggs Galore to a victory in the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes, were each fined $1,500 for using the whip more than six times in their respective races.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Flightline, the undefeated 4-year-old colt, has resumed training at Santa Anita after he was briefly sidelined with a strained hock in February.
Flightline was jogged early Sunday for the second consecutive day, and will resume workouts in April, trainer John Sadler said. The Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at a mile at Belmont Park on June 11 remains a late spring goal.
For now, Flightline will be eased back into action.
“He’ll jog at least a week,” Sadler said. “It’s routine. It’s the mundane part of getting back to where you were.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – In his 17th start, Express Train won the most prestigious race of his career in Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap. It was a victory easy to predict.
Express Train was the 11-10 favorite on the strength of consecutive wins in Grade 2 prep races in December and January. When he held off a sustained threat from Louisiana shipper Warrant to win the Big Cap by a head, Express Train showed trainer John Shirreffs that the 5-year-old horse is in peak form.
Classic Causeway is all set for his role as the favorite in the Tampa Bay Derby after having his final prerace breeze Saturday at the Palm Meadows training center on the Atlantic Coast.
Classic Causeway was a dominant winner of the Feb. 12 Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay Downs. The chestnut colt went five furlongs in 59.80 seconds in preparing for the Grade 2, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby, to be run Saturday as the annual Festival Day showcase at Tampa in Oldsmar, Fla.
