Lone Star Park near Dallas begins what might be its final meet under the ownership of MI Developments on Friday night, when it puts on a 10-race card for Quarter Horses highlighted by the $25,000 Classic Chevrolet Heartbeat of America Handicap.
The track will race 26 nights through Nov. 13.
Global Gaming has purchased the operating assets of Lone Star from MI Developments for $47 million, and is now awaiting license approvals from the Texas Racing Commission.
After a successful summer at Saratoga, trainer Tom Proctor hope to continue his momentum at Belmont Park on Saturday when he runs two horses in the Grade 1, $250,000 Garden City Breeders’ Cup for 3-year-old fillies.
Proctor entered both the front-running Queen of the Creek and the late-running Snow Top Mountain in the 1 1/8-mile turf race, which drew a field of eight Both fillies will be stretching out to nine furlongs after competing in one-mile races at Saratoga.
ELMONT, N.Y. – It isn’t often the best – and richest – race of the day is carded as the opener, but such is the case Friday at Belmont Park when eight 3-year-olds are scheduled to run in the $60,000 Fifth Marine Stakes at a mile over the Widener Turf Course.
The Fifth Marine is one of two overnight stakes on the program. The $60,000 Salute Me Sir for New York-breds on dirt, drew a field of five and will be run as the third race.
ELMONT, N.Y. – A six-day delay in the carding of the $60,000 Salute Me Sir Stakes may have worked out just fine for trainer Richard Schosberg and his 5-year-old Giant Moon. Initially scheduled to be run last Saturday, the race is now being run as the third race on Friday’s nine-race card.
AUBURN, Wash. – September is Tim McCanna’s time of year. The low-key trainer has all but secured his 10th championship in Emerald Downs’ 15-year history, and with seven racing days remaining, is closing in on a new record for victories in a single season.
After a slow start to the 90-day meeting, McCanna has been rolling, winning with 14 of his 51 starters over the past 11 racing days. He holds a comfortable 62-51 lead over Vann Belvoir and needs five victories to break the single-season record he set in 2008, when he saddled 66 winners.
AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Tom Wenzel is aiming high with Lady Golightly. After resounding victories in her first two stakes appearances at Emerald Downs, the speedy 2-year-old filly will try the boys Sept. 26 in the season-ending Gottstein Futurity.
Only nine fillies have captured the Gottstein in 72 runnings since the race’s inception in 1940, and only Smarty Deb has won it since Emerald Downs opened in 1996.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mark Frostad and owner Sam-Son Farm rarely miss a Woodbine Mile, having been represented in 11 of the first 13 runnings.
On Sunday, the outfit will be looking for its third win in the Woodbine Mile, with Grand Adventure set to go postward in Grade 1, $1 million turf feature for 3-year-olds and up.
Grand Adventure, a Kentucky-bred 4-year-old, will be looking to follow in the footsteps of Quiet Resolve, who won the 1999 running of the Woodbine Mile via a disqualification, and Soaring Free, who scored without an assist from the stewards in 2004.
Severely injured jockey Michael Martinez continues to show improvement after the Sunday spill at Golden Gate Fields that severed his spinal cord.
On Tuesday, his lung function improved enough for him to be removed from a breathing machine and a chest tube was removed from his right side. Doctors at Highland Hospital in Oakland hope to remove the chest tube from his left side Wednesday, according to Golden Gate Fields’ track physician, Dr. David Seftel.