INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Tiz West and Meteore were stakes winners in their 3-year-old campaigns in 2008 and 2009. It’s racing against older horses that has been difficult.
Both are winless this year for trainer Richard Mandella, but are considered leading candidates in Friday’s seventh race at Hollywood Park, a one-mile optional $80,000 claimer on turf. A win on Friday could lead to a start in the $250,000 Citation Handicap here on Nov. 27.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – First-time Luis Contreras has been a profitable angle of late, and Lemon Twirl will have the talented rider on her back for the first time in a race in Friday’s sixth, a third-level optional claimer that is scheduled for seven furlongs on the grass.
Contreras was only allowed to ride for American connections at Woodbine until recently, when he got the paperwork completed that permits him to ride for everybody. This will be his first mount for John Mattine, who trains Lemon Twirl for owner George Robertson.
Freaky’s win in the $150,000 Los Alamitos Championship last Saturday was not as fast or as flashy as his win in the same race in 2009, but the performance was quick enough and good enough to confirm his status as the leading older Quarter Horse in the nation.
Freaky had a seven-race winning streak end with a second-place finish to A Tempting Dash in the Go Man Go Handicap on Sept. 10, Freaky’s first start since February. The win in the Los Alamitos Championship indicated that the 5-year-old gelding needed a warmup race to return to top form.
Trainer Wayne Catalano’s barn has been a hotbed for 2-year-old fillies the last several years, and little has changed heading into next month’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs. Catalano could have as many as two starters in the Nov. 5 race that he won last year with She Be Wild, and in 2006 with Dreaming of Anna.
“We’ll try for a third one,” said Catalano.
Sure, the Breeders’ Cup Classic has a purse of $5 million, which makes the $1 million purse of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile look rather paltry by comparison. But the 1 1/4-mile Classic also has a Formidable Foursome to overcome in Zenyatta, Blame, Quality Road, and Lookin At Lucky. The Dirt Mile has … well, it doesn’t have horses like that.
But it isn’t the disparate level of competition that has trainer Richard Mandella leaning “80 percent” toward the Dirt Mile over the Classic with Crown of Thorns. What does is distance and timing.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Arguably the best 3-year-old turf fillies in North America ran last weekend in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland. Just six days later, the Grade 3 Pin Oak Valley View will be run here Friday as the proverbial little sister to the QE II, and its cast of characters is one to match.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Cloudy’s Knight has been retired after an old injury flared up, ending a terrific racing career in which the 10-year-old gelding earned more than $2.5 million, was voted a champion in Canada, and barely missed winning a Breeders’ Cup event.
“We finally made the decision that the time has come,” said Jonathan Sheppard, the Hall of Fame trainer who scratched Cloudy’s Knight from Thursday’s Sycamore Stakes at Keeneland. “We tried to bring him back, but the leg flared up again. We went as far as we could with him.”
Espoir City, the Japanese standout who will run in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, arrived in Kentucky well before dawn Tuesday following a lengthy journey from Japan by way of Chicago and was placed under a 48-hour quarantine at Churchill Downs.
Espoir City has won 11 of 20 starts and earned nearly $6 million. The 5-year-old horse is by Gold Allure, a son of Sunday Silence. Trainer Akio Adachi and jockey Tetsuzo Sato will be assisted by an interpreter from the International Racing Bureau for the Breeders’ Cup.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Thursday’s third race at Hollywood Park will determine how ambitious owner Greg Unruh and trainer Mike Mitchell will be in coming weeks with Where’s the Remote.
Where’s the Remote, 4, will start favored in an allowance race over 1 1/4 miles on turf on Thursday evening. A win could lead to a start in the $500,000 Breeders’ Cup Marathon over 1 3/4 miles on dirt at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5. A back-up plan is the $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup over 1 1/2 miles on Nov. 13.
“We still have both races in our sights,” Mitchell said on Tuesday.
Ontrack business so far at the fall meet at Keeneland is up substantially while all-sources handle is virtually even with last year, according to figures released Tuesday by officials at the Lexington, Ky., track.
Through Sunday, and after eight of 17 programs, ontrack attendance was up 28 percent over corresponding 2009 fall dates, while ontrack handle was up 10 percent. The running totals to date were 124,870 in attendance and $11.6 million in handle, which includes imported simulcast wagering.