Golden Stripe, who has been highly competitive in open filly and mare company, will be the one to beat when she faces fellow Manitoba-breds in the $50,000 Distaff at Assiniboia Downs on Friday evening.
The one-mile Distaff is one of two stakes on the program along with the $40,000 CTHS Sales, a six-furlong race for 2-year-olds.
AUBURN, Wash. – Bill Tollett arrived at Longacres in 1964, shortly after fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson took up residence in the White House. In the ensuing 46 years, he has saddled more than 1,000 winners up and down the West Coast and trained dozens of stakes victors, none better than Harmony Creek, who finished third in the 1989 Longacres Mile as a 3-year-old.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trappe Shot is in. So is Miner’s Reserve - for now. Perhaps fittingly, Super Saver, the somewhat forgotten Kentucky Derby winner, is on the extreme outside for Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga.
That trio, as well as Jim Dandy winner A Little Warm, were among the 11 3-year-olds entered Wednesday for Saturday’s 141st Travers, run at 1 1/4 miles. If the field holds, it will equal the second-largest since 1993, when Sea Hero won in a field of 11. The 2008 Travers, won by Colonel John, had a field of 12.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Hold Me Back likes to have a synthetic surface under his feet. He certainly lets no moss gather there. When he runs on Saturday in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar, it will mark the 11th track at which he has raced in his peripatetic, 13-race career.
Ann McGovern said on Tuesday that she will resign as president and general manager of Ruidoso Downs when the meet ends next month in order to spend more time with her family. Jean Stoddard, the track’s assistant general manager since 2004, will serve as the general manager of Ruidoso following the close of the meet Sept. 6.
McGovern, 49, said she would be available to Ruidoso’s owners, R.D. Hubbard and Bruce Rimbo, as long as needed to make the transition. She joined the track as its president and general manager in February 2008.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The status of two 3-year-olds nominated to Saturday’s Grade 1 King’s Bishop remained uncertain on Tuesday as both Mike Maker, who trains the Brazilian import Uareoutlaw, and Mike Stidham, who campaigns Grade 3 winner Comedero, were still up in the air regarding their status for the seven-furlong fixture.
STANTON, Del. - Barbaro's full brother Lentenor made his first start since finishing fourth in this year's Florida Derby at Delaware Park on Tuesday, but came up a bit short in the drive and wound up finishing third as the 1-2 choice in a 7 1/2-furlong allowance race on turf.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Gio Ponti was scheduled to return to the racetrack for the first time here Wednesday following his second-place finish last Saturday in the Grade 1 Arlington Million. The double Eclipse Award winner circled six wide while rallying on the final turn and gained the lead between calls in the stretch before being outfinished by Debussy in defense of his title in the Million.
The $100,000 Prelude at Louisiana Downs on Saturday is the traditional local prep for next month’s Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby, but it will have some Kentucky flair this year as Down With Dixie is shipping in from Churchill Downs. He was to arrive Wednesday for the mile and a sixteenth race that leads a card of six stakes worth a cumulative $350,000.
The races are designed as stepping-stones to the Super Derby program of eight stakes Sept. 25.
Delta Downs has raised the purse of the Delta Jackpot back to $1 million, Boyd Gaming, which owns the track, announced Tuesday. The race had been worth $750,000 since 2008.
The Delta Jackpot, at 1 1/16 miles, has also been repositioned on the calendar, and will be run about two weeks earlier than usual, on Nov. 20. It will also be held in the afternoon, after being run at night for the majority of its seven previous editions.
The Jackpot will be the second-richest 2-year-old stakes in the country behind the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Nov. 6.