ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Blue Laser outran Rockin Heat and Classic Legacy, who made an eye-catching premature move, to take the Grade 3, $253,250 Grey Stakes at Woodbine on Sunday.
Blue Laser went four-wide on the first turn in the 1 1/16-mile route for 2-year-olds, while three runners battled through fast fractions, including favored Bear’s Future. .
ELMONT, N.Y. - The task of preparing Quality Road to get the 1 1/4 miles of next month’s Breeders’ Cup Classic was picked up in earnest Sunday morning at Belmont Park as the multiple Grade 1-winning colt worked five furlongs in company and then proceeded to gallop out an additional three-eighths of a mile.
Alywyn wrapped up divisional honors as the top female runner in Alberta with a narrow win in the $50,000 Duchess of York Stakes for fillies and mares at Northlands Park on Saturday.
Jockey Rico Walcott had Alywyn in a stalking position during the early stages of the 1 1/16-mile race. He moved Alywyn up to confront pace-setting Shakennwithanolive on the stretch turn and after disposing of Shakenwithanolive at the top of the stretch, she was all out to hold off London Lass by a neck. Lemon Pepper made a late move to get up for third.
Final time for the race was 1:46.40.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Smiling Tiger is bound for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs on Nov. 6 after a hard-fought win in Saturday’s $250,000 Ancient Title Stakes at Hollywood Park.
Ridden by Russell Baze, Smiling Tiger ($9.20) won the Grade 1 Ancient Title by a half-length over a fast-closing Supreme Summit. E Z’s Gentlemen finished third. Dancing in Silks, the winner of the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, could only finish sixth in the field of seven.
STICKNEY, Ill. – Hey, this McLaughlin guy seems to know what he’s doing.
New York-based trainer Kiaran McLaughlin sent two horses to Hawthorne a week before last. Redding Colliery won the Hawthorne Gold Cup on Oct. 2, and late Saturday afternoon, Yankee Fourtune cruised to a front-running score in the Grade 3, $150,000 Hawthorne Derby.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The opening half-mile of Saturday’s Grade 1 Champagne Stakes went in 45.92 seconds and the heavy favorite, Uncle Mo, had 22-1 longshot I’m Steppin It Up lapped on him.
For an ordinary 2-year-old making just his second career start, this might have taken something out of him. In the next half-mile it became evidently clear that Uncle Mo is no ordinary 2-year-old.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The $150,000 Oak Tree Mile at Hollywood Park on Saturday was more of a prep for the $100,000 California Cup Mile on Oct. 30 than the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 6.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Gio Ponti flexed the muscles of a multiple Eclipse Award winner Saturday when gliding to victory without even feeling the whip in the richest race of the Keeneland fall meet, the $600,000 Shadwell Turf Mile.
With Ramon Dominguez aboard, Gio Ponti relaxed off the early pace in the Grade 1 Shadwell before rallying between rivals and finishing a deceptively easy length before Society’s Chairman in a field of six older horses. He returned $3.60 as the favorite.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Al Stall has long known he trains one of the top handicap horses in America in Blame. And after Saturday’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, he can feel with confidence that he also has one of the nation’s top juveniles, too, in J. B.’s Thunder.
Making just the second start of his career, J. B.’s Thunder made short work of the Breeders’ Futurity field, taking command from the start and quickening away from the opposition to score a four-length victory over Santiva.
