INGLEWOOD, Calif. – A six-furlong turf sprint Wednesday at Hollywood Park will determine the autumn campaign for California-bred stakes winner La Nez.
If she runs well Wednesday in the second-level allowance, La Nez will return at the same distance over the same course Oct. 30 in the $100,000 California Cup Distaff.
“We’ll see if it is feasible, see if she handles the grass” trainer Eric Kruljac said.
HURON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – The first race at Pinnacle Race Course was delayed nearly 20 minutes Sunday when horsemen scrambled to secure riders after four jockeys, including the three leaders, failed breathalyzer tests just before the first race.
ALBANY, Calif. – Trainer Steve Sherman won the Golden Gate Fields summer meet trainer’s title Sunday when favored Savan’ Brianne won the feature race to give Sherman his 22nd victory.
Sherman and Billy Morey had started the day tied with 20 wins each.
Sherman won the first race with Luberon, but Morey tied him by saddling I’m Going Places, who won the second race.
I’m Going Places was Morey’s final entrant of the meet, while Sherman had four more runners. He finished second with Candy Five Hundred in the fifth before Savan’ Brianne’s victory in the eighth race.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Da-DING Ding.
Mike Smith’s cell phone sat on a table in the Hollywood Park press lounge late Saturday afternoon and seemed to come alive every minute with a chime, indicating the arrival of a new text message.
Less than two hours earlier, Smith had ridden Zenyatta to a win in the $250,000 Lady’s Secret Stakes, extending her unbeaten streak to 19 races. Across the nation, Smith’s friends were offering near-constant modern-day congratulations. By the time he was done riding on Saturday, he had 84 messages.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Impossible Time, one of the leading older fillies and mares at Woodbine, should be formidable at a short price Wednesday night in the $125,000 Classy ‘n Smart Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile route on Polytrack.
Impossible Time, a 5-year-old trained by Roger Attfield, has won 7 of 13 career starts, which includes a 4-for-7 record this year. Her only loss at the meet came when she rallied for second behind front-runner Moonlit Beauty in the seven-furlong Zadracarta Stakes on the grass.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Southdale had experimented with turf racing here at Woodbine this summer, finishing third in the 1 1/8-mile King Edward and fifth in the seven-furlong Play the King.
“The turf program here is so lucrative, you’ve got to give it a shot,” said Ian Black, who trains the homebred 4-year-old Southdale for Rod Ferguson. “It worked out in the end, anyway.”
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Through the final quarter-mile of Sunday’s $250,000 Clement Hirsch Turf Championship, Champ Pegasus’s chances of winning went from dim to glowing.
He was seventh with two furlongs remaining, seemingly going nowhere. Then, as he settled into the stretch, Champ Pegasus launched a rally that carried him to the front of the Grade 1 race over 1 1/4 miles on turf.
“We planned the whole thing that way,” trainer Richard Mandella deadpanned in the winner’s circle.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Rigoletta found circumstances to her liking in early stretch of Sunday’s $250,000 Oak Leaf Stakes at Hollywood Park. She was in a duel with the heavily favored Tell a Kelly toward the end of a Grade 1 race over 1 1/16 miles.
To jockey David Flores, the scenario was ideal for Rigoletta, even as the heavily favored Tell a Kelly loomed alongside.
ELMONT, N.Y. – After an 11-year hiatus, trainer James Bond appears headed back to the Breeders’ Cup after Tizway scored an authoritative five-length victory in Sunday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park.
While the victory did not earn Tizway an automatic bid into the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, the performance should be enough to get him selected into the field for $1 million race to be run Nov. 6 at Churchill Downs.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Winter Memories made an electrifying move from the quarter pole to the eighth pole that not only carried her to an eye-catching victory in Sunday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Miss Grillo Stakes at Belmont Park but may have made her the favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf next month at Churchill Downs.