POMONA, Calif. – The 2010 Los Angeles County Fair meet finished a 15-day run of predictability Monday at Fairplex Park. There were few surprises.
Favorites won nearly 45 percent of Thoroughbred races (71 for 158), Martin Pedroza won his 12th consecutive riding title, and high-volume Doug O’Neill topped the trainer standings for seventh time in nine years.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Though already established as one of the top older horses in training for two straight years, Rail Trip still has much to prove in Saturday’s $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.
After racing exclusively on the synthetic surfaces at Hollywood Park, Santa Anita, and Del Mar – where he won 8 of 12 starts, including three graded stakes – Rail Trip makes his first start on dirt in the Gold Cup. Not only does Rail Trip have to run off a 12-week layoff, but he has to go 1 1/4 miles against arguably the best horse in training, Blame.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Joe Talamo looked down at his left wrist, flexed it back and forth a few times, and made a fist with his left hand.
Seven weeks after he broke that wrist in a spill on the turf course at Del Mar, the hand and wrist were back to normal as Talamo stood in the barn area at Hollywood Park last weekend. Thursday’s opening night of the Oak Tree at Hollywood Park meeting was days away and the 20-year-old jockey was eager to resume race riding.
“They said it was a good break,” he said. “It wasn’t displaced. They just put a cast on it.”
Golden Gate Fields is getting an early start on its plans to highlight 2-year-olds at its upcoming fall meet, with five juvenile races on Friday.
The short Golden Gate summer meeting ends Sunday, with the Big Fresno Fair opening next Wednesday and running for two weeks before racing returns to Golden Gate Fields for the remainder of the year.
MIAMI – He may have been in the minority, but trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. was one guy who didn’t mind all the rain that fell over Calder Race Course and the surrounding area last week. First of all, Plesa was in New Jersey at the time. Secondly, all that wet weather contributed at least in part to the two stakes wins he posted here Saturday with his up-and-coming 3-year-old tandem of Successful Song and El Kingdom.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Thursday’s eighth race at Woodbine was originally on the portion of last Friday’s card that was canceled due to high winds. Desire and Fire was a contender in the original version of the Ontario-sired allowance, but the need-to-lead type looks even better Thursday because she’s the lone speed in the one-mile grass route for nonwinners of three races lifetime.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Roxy Gap is back at the racetrack, and a trip to the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs is not out of the question.
That passage already might have been booked had misfortune not descended upon Roxy Gap on the morning of Sept. 18, as she was the favorite for Woodbine’s Natalma, in which the winner earned an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.
Members of the racing community gathered Sunday at Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., to remember the jockey Mark Anthony Villa, 44, who died in a racing accident Saturday.
Mike Kelley, Villa's agent, said the jockey colony gathered at the winner's circle for a prayer. The first race was run in silence in Villa's memory.
Though all signs point to reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra running in this weekend's Grade 1, $350,000 Beldame at Belmont, her connections have still not officially confirmed that she is running in the 1 1/8-mile race.
At Saratoga on Monday, Rachel Alexandra worked four furlongs in 48.45 seconds over the Oklahoma training track. It was the fastest of 50 works at the distance. Saratoga clockers caught her first quarter in 24.95 seconds and her second quarter in 23.50 while galloping out in 1:01.09.
Blind Luck will break from the rail while giving each of her rivals 10 pounds on Saturday when she runs in the Grade 2, $750,000 Fitz Dixon Cotillion at Parx Racing at Philadelphia Park.
The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies drew five horses Monday, including Havre de Grace, who has been edged by Blind Luck in both the Grade 1 Alabama at Saratoga and the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks. Blind Luck on Saturday will be seeking her sixth graded win of the year in a campaign highlighted by a victory in the Kentucky Oaks.