ETOBICOKE, Ontario – New Normal went right to the front under Javier Castellano and never looked back to take the Grade 3, $201,200 Natalma Stakes at Woodbine on Saturday.
With the victory, New Normal ($15.80) gained inclusion into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs , as part of the Win and You’re In program.
On e way or another, owner-trainer Joe Marino figures to have a good chance to get the job done in Tuesday’s featured eighth race at Finger Lakes.
Marino has the coupled entry of 7-year-old Cured and 4-year-old The Real Deal available for a 5 1/2-furlong sprint open to New York-breds who have not won two statebred allowance races or $8,000 claimers.
MIAMI – It seemed like a good idea at the time, skipping next week’s one mile and 70-yard Foolish Pleasure Stakes with the speedy Rough’n Royal in lieu of a first-level allowance dash on Saturday’s Calder program. But when trainer David Braddy and his owner George Frazee looked at the entries and saw the likes of stakes winner Little Drama and the very fast Uno Caliente in the lineup for Saturday’s race, they opted to scratch, wait the week, and try their luck around two turns in the Foolish Pleasure.
In order to be eligible for Monday’s co-featured ninth race at Parx Racing, a five-furlong starter allowance for fillies and mares going five furlongs on turf, a horse must have run for a claiming price of $16,000 or less sometime within the past two seasons. Indycat satisfied the requirement less than two weeks ago, while Suzzona qualified way back in April 2009.
Like most everyone else, Jimmy Baker noticed that speed tended to hold well in grass races at the recently ended Saratoga meet. That’s why he is encouraged with the form that a filly named Aphrodite’s Tears brings to her Monday race at Kentucky Downs.
Aphrodite’s Tears, part of a full field in the co-featured eighth race at the turf-only track in Franklin, Ky., was a fast-closing second in her Saratoga finale, a conditioned claiming race on Aug. 29.
Miss Victoriana, invading from Northlands Park, upset the best fillies and mares that Assiniboia Downs had to offer in Friday’s $57,571 Matron Handicap.
Rallying from last place in the field of eight, Miss Victoriana launched an outside move around the final turn that carried her to a 1 3/4-length victory under her regular rider Shannon Beauregard.
MIAMI – Perhaps the most pressing question a week out from Saturday’s Festival of the Sun Preview program at Calder is: What will trainer Stanley Gold and owner Fred Brie decide to do with Awesome Feather?
They have plenty of options for Awesome Feather, including running the undefeated 2-year-old filly against her own kind in the Brave Raj, trying her against males in the Foolish Pleasure, or keeping her in the barn altogether and training her up to her main local objective, the $375,000 My Dear Girl on Oct. 18.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Pinckney Hill hopes to revert to his early-season form when he takes a drop in class for Sunday’s $60,000 Keep the Promise Stakes at Belmont Park. The Keep the Promise, run at 1 1/16 miles over the Widener turf course, is the first race on a 10-race card that is highlighted by the Grade 3, $100,000 Noble Damsel Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf.
Health officials at Highland General Hospital in Oakland agreed late on Friday to release medical records related to the spinal-cord injury suffered by jockey Michael Martinez to specialists in Chicago who are capable of conducting experimental treatments for paralysis, according to Golden Gate Fields’s track physician and the rider’s attorney.
Allowed to race uncontested on the lead under Jose Lezcano, Lubash pulled off a 35-1 upset in Friday’s $60,000 Fifth Marine Stakes over a yielding Widener turf course at Belmont Park.
Lubash ($72.50), a New York-bred 3-year-old son of Freud, went in fractions of 24.87 seconds, 49.93, and 1:13.83, and covered one mile in 1:38.32 while finishing 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Lighthouse Sound. It was another 2 1/2 lengths back to Asphalt.
