Behold de Buy and Smiles Ahead will be adding blinkers for different reasons Friday night in the $50,000 Kip Deville at Remington Park.
The six-furlong race for 2-year-olds is the first leg of a new juvenile series at Remington that culminates with the $250,000 Springboard Mile on Dec. 11. The Kip Deville also serves as the first of six stakes to be run at the track this weekend, with the highlight being the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sunday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Uncle Mo, the most impressive debut winner of the Saratoga meet, will meet five fellow maiden winners in Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park.
But the competition for the one-mile race came up significantly easier than originally expected with the notable absences of a pair of horses from the Steve Asmussen barn. Neither Justin Phillip nor Wine Police was entered in the Champagne as both horses were shipped from Saratoga to Churchill Downs on Monday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Warrior’s Reward is 4, but the way he has run in his races, he’s acting like a teenager whose rallying cry is “Leave me alone!” When allowed to settle and make a run, he has performed well. But when asked to scoot as soon as the gate opens, he has disappointed. Lesson learned, according to trainer Ian Wilkes.
“The one time he didn’t run well this year, in the Met Mile, I screwed up,” Wilkes said Wednesday morning. “We didn’t let him run his race. He doesn’t want to be put on the front end – at least until the wire.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Robby Albarado estimates he has had “10, maybe 12” significant injuries since he began his professional riding career more than 20 years ago in his native Louisiana. Some were more serious, some less so, than the one he suffered Aug. 11 at Saratoga, where he was thrown by his mount following the first race that day.
“Probably the worst were my skull fractures [in 1998 and 1999] and the broken pelvis [in 2000],” said Albarado. “This one hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – There are race meets, and then there are race meets. Keeneland Race Course kicks off a 17-day fall meet Friday with the familiar classy touch that perennially places it alongside the Saratogas and Del Mars of the racing world – and it won’t take long to see why this track ranks among those elites.
STICKNEY, Ill. – No word on whether Redding Colliery has visited the Art Institute of Chicago or Millennium Park, or taken in a meaningless late-season Cubs or White Sox game. The point is, while Redding Colliery remains in Chicago, his work here was done early Saturday evening, when he won the Hawthorne Gold Cup. It is just a matter of whiling away the days, waiting for stablemate Yankee Fourtune to start Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Hawthorne Derby.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Though the competition got somewhat tougher, the re-draw of an optional claimer/third-level allowance race that serves as the feature on Friday’s nine-race card at Belmont Park seemed to benefit Captain Cherokee.
When originally carded for Oct. 1, this six-furlong race drew a field of five and Captain Cherokee had the rail. The race was postponed when that card was scrapped because of inclement weather.
Redrawn on Sunday for Friday, the race went with a field of eight with Captain Cherokee drawn sweetly on the outside.
While Hopeful Stakes winner Boys At Tosconova would have to be considered the early favorite for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at this point, he could be usurped this weekend when Uncle Mo makes his highly anticipated second start in the Grade 1, $300,000 Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Medici Code and Ryehill Dreamer return from lengthy layoffs in an optional claimer on turf at Hollywood Park on Friday night, a race that neither of their trainers see as a must-win situation.
Medici Code, 6, has not started since finishing second in the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Turf Championship at Santa Anita last October. He emerged from the race with a hock injury that required surgery, trainer Darrell Vienna said Wednesday.
“It took a long time to get better,” Vienna said.
The Breeders' Cup Sprint lost yet another top contender when trainer Todd Pletcher revealed Discreetly Mine will miss the race because of an injury to his left stifle. Division leader Majesticperfection was the first major defection from the race when retired because of injury late this summer.
Pletcher said it took several days to diagnose the exact nature of Discreetly Mine's problem but received the bad news from Dr. Larry Bramlage on Wednesday.