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.
AUBURN, Wash. – Noosa Beach was full of himself Monday, a day after winning the Grade 3 Longacres Mile. An injury to his right front foot, sustained shortly after he left the starting gate, was less severe than originally feared, and the speedy 4-year-old was feeling his oats.
“He’s missing a little skin, he’s got a deep bruise in there, but the injury looks a lot better than it did yesterday,” trainer Doris Harwood said Monday afternoon. “He ate all his dinner last night, and he looked pretty darn good today. He was proud of himself, without a doubt.”
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Tony Dutrow always felt A Little Warm was among the top 3-year-olds in the country. He just thought it was going to be in sprint races.
So when Dutrow thinks about running the probable favorite for Saturday’s $1 million Travers Stakes at 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga, he is quick to credit owner/breeder Ed Evans and the decision he made to try the horse in the Louisiana Derby in March. Though A Little Warm got beat that day – he was second to Mission Impazible – it solidified Evans’s faith that A Little Warm was a distance horse.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, so too has Awesome Gem returned to Del Mar. Now age 7, Awesome Gem has become something of a fixture here. On Saturday, he will run in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic for the fourth straight year.
He finished second in the race in 2007, and was seventh in both 2008 and 2009, but he comes into this year’s race following a victory in the Hollywood Gold Cup, a performance that ranks as the highlight of his lengthy career.