Ben’s Cat, who has been strictly a sprinter while reeling off six consecutive victories to begin his career, will attempt to stretch out to 1 1/8 miles for Saturday’s $50,000 Find Handicap at Laurel Park.
A 4-year-old gelding trained by King Leatherbury, Ben’s Cat’s longest race has been seven furlongs. His two starts on turf produced daylight stakes victories in the six-furlong Mister Diz and the 5 1/2-furlong Maryland Million Turf Sprint.
Jockey Elaine Castillo, who earlier this season became the first female rider at Finger Lakes to win 500 races, has retired at age 29 to pursue a career in culinary arts.
Castillo, a native of Mexico City, Mexico, rode for the final time in last Friday’s eighth race, when she finished seventh aboard Momsboy. Coincidentally, Momsboy provided Castillo with the lone stakes victory of her seven-year career in the 2008 Finger Lakes Juvenile.
Prince Will I Am, an improving 3-year-old, and Awesome Gem, a 7-year-old veteran who won the Hollywood Gold Cup in July, are the only Grade 1 winners in an eclectic field of 13 horses pre-entered for the Grade 3 Breeders' Cup Marathon to be run Friday, Nov. 5.
If she gets into the race, the speedy Nina Fever will bring a four-race win streak into the Grade 2 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Nina Fever, trained by Wesley Ward, has started seven times. She won her debut in a romp at Keeneland in April, before finishing fifth in two consecutive graded dirt stakes, and then crushed a field of $40,000 claimers at Monmouth.
Nina Fever is last of the 18 pre-entered on the preference list for the race, but with two listing the Juvenile Fillies Turf as a second preference she has a shot to get into the 14-horse field.
Midday will be a strong favorite in an attempt to defend her title in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 5, a race that drew just 11 pre-entrants from Europe, Japan, and North America.
Midday won the 2009 BC Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita and is arguably in better form this year, having won 3 of 4 starts, with Group 1 wins in England and France in her last three races.
It worked in the spring, and he is hoping it will work now. While many of the entrants in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic are already on the grounds at Churchill Downs, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has kept Blind Luck in California, where she is completing her preparation at Hollywood Park. Hollendorfer did the same thing in the spring, shipping Blind Luck to Churchill Downs just days before the Kentucky Oaks. She won that race by a nose, one of three Grade 1 victories this year that have put Blind Luck atop the 3-year-old filly division.
Red’s Round Table, who began her career running for a claiming tag, became a stakes winner Wednesday afternoon when she splashed her way to a front-running 6 3/4-length victory under Joe Rocco Jr. in the $50,000 White Clay Creek Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Delaware Park.
Four European 2-year-olds – led by Aidan O’Brien-trained Master of Hounds, the third-place finisher in the Group 1 Racing Trophy on Oct. 23 at Doncaster – were among seven horses chosen by the Breeders’ Cup Selection Committee among 19 pre-entries for the $1 million Juvenile Turf.