ARCADIA, Calif. – The retirement party for the stakes-winning mare Mrs. Astor is on hold.
Trainer Jonathan Thomas said on Wednesday that Mrs. Astor is scheduled to start in the Grade 3 Santa Ana Stakes for fillies and mares on March 15 and is a candidate for the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes on May 25.
“We’ll look at the Santa Ana,” he said. “There is talk about not retiring her and circling the Gamely and see how we can get to that. She’s doing very well. We’re talking about it.”
Butch Reid has hit a rough patch with Maximus Meridius, but the trainer said he has not lost an ounce of faith in the 5-year-old gelding. Looking to keep him close to home, Reid decided to pull him out of the $150,000 Toboggan at Aqueduct last Saturday, where he would have opened as the 7-2 third choice.
Reid instead entered him in a $55,000 allowance at Parx Racing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, but the Pennsylvania-bred struggled to overcome a troubled trip and finished fifth. He was later promoted to fourth because of a disqualification.
After a slow January hampered by weather, Brittany Russell is poised to unleash a barn full of live stakes runners in the coming weeks. The parade will begin with Complexity Jane and Sultry Lass in the Nellie Morse Stakes at Laurel on Saturday.
The trainer said Wednesday that Complexity Jane, a three-time stakes winner last year, is “doing great” ahead of her 4-year-old debut. In November, the filly returned from a three-month break and rattled off two straight victories in a pair of $100,000 stakes at Laurel. She is the likely favorite on Saturday.
In order to take down Quint’s Brew again in the $200,000 General George Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday, Robert Bailes said Slam Notion will have to return from a two-month layoff with the best race of his career.
With heavy snowfall and bitter cold keeping the 4-year-old gelding off the track for most of January, Bailes briefly considered pulling the colt out of the race altogether, but a four-furlong workout on Tuesday helped to set the trainer’s mind at ease.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Notwithstanding a disappointing comeback in her first start since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, Super Corredora will march on.
Super Corredora finished last of four starters in the Las Virgenes Stakes on Feb. 8 at Santa Anita, but trainer John Sadler has not lost faith in the 2025 champion 2-year-old filly. She returns to the track Thursday morning, even without a clear alibi for her below-par comeback.
The $2 million Belmont Stakes, the final leg of racing’s Triple Crown, will be the centerpiece of a five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival held June 3-7 at Saratoga that will offer 25 stakes worth $11.075 million, the New York Racing Association announced Wednesday.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Richard Baltas is not too concerned about a sluggish start to the Santa Anita winter meet – two wins from 37 starters, with four seconds and eight thirds.
“I’ve been in a slump,” Baltas acknowledged. “That being said, my good horses haven’t started running yet, and I know what I have in the barn.”
An arbitrator appointed by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit has handed down a 24-year suspension and more than $300,000 in fines to a longtime Illinois veterinarian for nine violations that were described as a “flagrant disregard” for the sport’s medication rules.
Del Mar has made slight alterations to the stakes schedule for its summer meeting later this year, increasing the purse of its opening-day feature on July 17 – the Oceanside – to an all-time high of $150,000, the track announced Tuesday.
The conditions of the Oceanside Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on turf have been changed from a restricted stakes to an open handicap. The purse of the race has been increased $50,000.
ARCADIA, Calif. – She paid a mere $7.80 to win, but Meaning’s victory in Sunday’s $98,000 Las Virgenes Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita was a minor upset.
Starting for the first time since a fourth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 31 at Del Mar, Meaning benefited from a superb trip in the Las Virgenes at a mile.
