ELMONT, N.Y. – Endless Circle will try to keep his and his trainer’s recent run of success going Friday when he tops a seven-horse field set to run in the $70,000 Easy N’ Dirty Stakes at Belmont Park.
Eight were entered in the 6 1/2-furlong stakes restricted to New York-breds, but Driven by Success is expected to scratch to run in Saturday’s Grade 1, $350,000 Vosburgh Invitational.
In his first five career races, the unbeaten Ben’s Cat has run just once on grass. Nevertheless, trainer King Leatherbury has chosen to have Ben’s Cat face 10 rivals – including the last three winners of the $100,000 stakes – in the Maryland Million Turf Sprint rather than challenge defending champion Roaring Lion and seven others in the $100,000 Maryland Million Sprint.
ELMONT, N.Y. – If you like a quality longshot with speed who could potentially get loose on the lead on a track he loves, Haynesfield could be for you in Saturday’s $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup.
In a race that includes Grade 1 winners Blame and Rail Trip and the solid 3-year-old Fly Down, Haynesfield should offer some value in the Gold Cup, one of five Grade 1 races on Saturday’s 11-race card at Belmont Park that begins at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The cast of fillies and mares who will challenge Zenyatta in Saturday's $250,000 Lady's Secret Stakes at Hollywood Park includes a mare who gave her a test in the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar in August and four others who face the toughest challenges of their careers.
Zenyatta will be heavily favored to extend her unbeaten streak to 19 races in the Grade 1 Lady's Secret, a race she won in 2008 and 2009. Zenyatta will be ridden by regular rider Mike Smith and has drawn post 5 in a field of six.
A memorial service for jockey Alan Cuthbertson will be held at 11:30 a.m. Friday in the backstretch restaurant at Hastings.
Cuthbertson was 63 when he died after a lengthy battle with lung cancer Sept. 6. Cuthbertson was the leading rider at Assiniboia Downs in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Not two hours after Rachel Alexandra was retired Tuesday, Fair Grounds renamed one of its major races in her honor.
The Silverbulletday Stakes, the New Orleans’ track’s prep race for the Fair Grounds Oaks, and scheduled for Feb. 19 in 2011, now will be called the Rachel Alexandra Stakes. The former Tiffany Lass Stakes, scheduled for Jan. 22 next year, has been renamed the Silverbulletday Stakes. Tiffany Lass, winner of the 1986 Kentucky Oaks, is out of the Fair Grounds stakes cycle.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Every day, year after year, through a Presidential election, two Olympics games, and a few Super Bowls, life at the barn of trainer John Shirreffs has been warmed by one constant, Zenyatta. Her racing career began in November of 2007, and, now 18 starts later, she remains the embodiment of perfection.
It has been five months since Eskendereya was retired from racing a week before he would have been favored in the Kentucky Derby, and his owner, Ahmed Zayat, still hasn’t gotten over it.
“I’d be lying if I said otherwise,” Zayat said Wednesday by phone from Egypt.
But with each new crop of 2-year-olds that arrives, the potential is there for another superstar to emerge. And while Zayat has not raced all of his 2-year-olds, two have displayed serious potential and could be contenders for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Nov. 6 at Churchill Downs.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Leaving New York had a three-race campaign at Del Mar this summer that covered just about every kind of a race a maiden winner could try – a claimer, an optional claimer, and a Grade 1.
Leaving New York was sixth in a $25,000 claimer, won the optional claimer, and was fourth in the Grade 1 Pat O’Brien Stakes. For Friday’s seventh race at Hollywood Park, Leaving New York starts in an allowance race over 6 1/2 furlongs, which trainer Carl O’Callaghan hopes will lead to a start in the $100,000 California Cup Sprint here Oct. 30.