Mine Over Matter, the only 3-year-old in a field of five, rallied past co-favorites Giant Moon and Manteca outside the eighth pole and drew clear to a 3 3/4-length victory in Friday’s $60,000 Salute Me Sir Stakes at Belmont Park.
Giant Moon, who pressed the pacesetting Manteca, held second by 1 1/4 lengths over Naughty New Yorker. Manteca, the actual betting favorite by $3,000 over Giant Moon, was fourth followed by Too Tough Pete, who leapt at the break.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – The improving Debonair Darling faces her toughest test Sunday in the $75,000 Politely Stakes for fillies and mares at Monmouth Park.
A 4-year-old trained by Greg Sacco, Debonair Darling makes her stakes debut against nine rivals in the 1 1/16-mile race.
She has run four times this year, all at Monmouth, with three seconds and a third in second-level allowances.
Sacco had hoped to knock off that condition before sending Debonair Darling into the stakes fray. But time and circumstances have a way of changing plans.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – A full field of 12 is expected to start in the Grade 3, $150,000 British Columbia Derby at Hastings next Sunday. The 1 1/8-mile B.C. Derby headlines a weekend that features eight stakes races.
The $75,000 B.C. Oaks tops the Saturday day card that will have four stakes for females: the 1 1/8-mile Delta Coleen for fillies and mares; $50,000 Fantasy for 2-year-old fillies stretching out to a 1 1/16 miles, and the Derby Bar and Grill Ladies Express for fillies and mares going six furlongs.
POMONA, Calif. – The 2-year-old colt Clubhouse Ride was slow to come around. Five starts into his career, he was still a maiden.
“He was like a teenage kid; he had not figured it out yet,” trainer Craig Lewis said.
But in his sixth start Aug. 14 at Del Mar, Clubhouse Ride extracted himself from trouble and exploded late.
Clubhouse Ride won the six-furlong sprint like a good horse, and the best may be yet to come.
“He’s a big, long horse with a big long stride,” Lewis said. “My impression is he is a two-turn horse.”
The Super Derby status of First Dude and Golden Moka, who are among the top nominees to the Grade 2, $500,000 race that will be run next Saturday at Louisiana Downs, will come into focus over the weekend. Both are set for workouts, and are among the six to eight horses under serious Super Derby consideration in a field that was fluid on Friday.
The Super Derby, at 1 1/8 miles, is the richest race of the meet. It will be the centerpiece of a program of eight stakes worth more than $1 million next Saturday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – It’s a photograph that trainer Chad Brown still finds hard to digest. But the picture of last year’s Noble Damsel Stakes did indeed show Rutherienne’s nose on the wire ahead of Quiet Meadow, even if the body of the jockey of Quiet Meadow was ahead of that of Rutherienne’s rider.
“It looks like we’re ahead, but I’ll take their word for it,” Brown, the trainer of Quiet Meadow said.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Eric Guillot has consolidated a 20-horse stable at Churchill Downs, marking the first time the Louisiana-born trainer will have a sizable contingent of runners to compete on the Kentucky circuit.
Guillot, who had raced primarily in Southern California since 2006 before leaving earlier this year to move back east, has one of the top contenders for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in Champagne d’Oro, the standout 3-year-old filly who won the Grade 1 Acorn and Grade 1 Test in New York this year.
The front-running Duty Calls heads a field of eight 2-year-old Michigan-bred colts and geldings in Sunday’s $50,000 Patrick Wood Stakes at Pinnacle Race Course. The six-furlong race goes as race 8 on the card.
Duty Calls, from the barn of leading trainer Robert Gorham, posted the field’s best Beyer Figure of 45 in his only start, which came back on Aug. 1. He led by as much as three lengths in that 4 1/2-furlong race, but lugged out in the stretch and barely held on to win by a neck.
Unreachable Star, first or second in each of his last five races against Indiana-breds, will seek to maintain his sharp form when he faces eight other Indiana-bred and Indiana-registered colts and geldings in the $84,000 Gus Grissom at Hoosier Park on Sunday afternoon.