ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Silverleo, an impressive winner when switched to turf for his second start, will be favored to take home the lion’s share of the purse here in Thursday’s $91,100 allowance feature.
The seven-furlong turf race for 2-year-olds attracted a field of six and is the prep for the Grade 3, $250,000 Summer Stakes, a one-mile turf race which will ensure the winner a guaranteed spot in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs.
SARATOGA, N.Y.- What the field for Thursday’s $100,000 New York Turf Writers Cup lacks in quality it will more than make up for in competiveness with an evenly matched group of nine scheduled to go two miles and three furlongs over the hurdles in the premier event for the steeplechase set during the Saratoga meeting.
Divine Fortune and Arcadius are stablemates under the shed of Jonathan Sheppard. Tom Voss trains Slip Away. And both men agree the steeplechase division stabled here this summer is the weakest it has been in recent memory.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Ben Garner, an amateur steeplechase jockey who has served as an exercise rider for trainer Doug Fout for the past 18 months, was injured in a freak accident during training hours at Saratoga on Tuesday morning.
According to Fout, Garner was returning to his barn at the annex to the Oklahoma training center after galloping Scheming on the main track shortly before 8 a.m. when a loud bang from the maintenance shed spooked the unraced horse.
DEL MAR, Calif. – The waiting, Tom Petty and trainer Craig Lewis will tell you, is the hardest part. Lewis watched in agony four weeks ago as his horse Danzing Tribal waited, and waited, and waited some more, hoping for room to materialize. It never did.
Now Lewis has had to wait four weeks to run him back in a similar turf sprint at Del Mar. If good things come to those who wait, Lewis and Danzing Tribal are well overdue.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Biofuel headed into last Sunday’s Belle Mahone with two objectives. The first was to ensure her eligibility for a Sovereign Award, with the Belle Mahone being the third start in Canada this year, which is necessary for consideration.
Of equal importance was the fact that the Belle Mahone gave Biofuel a timely tune-up for the Grade 2, $750,000 Cotillion, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies at Philadelphia Park on Oct. 2.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Three years ago, Jambalaya was on top of the racing world after winning the Grade 1 Arlington Million. Now, after starting just twice in the interim, Jambalaya finally is all out of comebacks.
“He’s retiring sound and healthy,” said Catherine Day Phillips, who trains Jambalaya and owns the 6-year-old gelding in partnership with her husband, Todd Phillips. “He’s just not really standing up to the rigors of training. He still looks like a million dollars; that makes it hard to see him go.”
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Juan Olmos owned and trained the top 2-year-old in British Columbia in both 2008 and 2009. He could have another good one in Tlaquepaque, who figures to be one of the favorites in the $50,000 New Westminster at Hastings Thursday. The 6 1/2-furlong dash drew eight horses and goes as the seventh race.
Also on the eight-race card, which begins at 6:40 p.m., is the $50,000 Lassie for 2-year-old fillies. The races are the first open stakes for 2-year-olds at Hastings this year.
AUBURN, Wash. – Seventy-two down, 18 to go. That’s how many racing days remain at Emerald Downs in 2010, beginning with a seven-race program Thursday, the final Thursday card of the meeting. First post is 6 p.m. Pacific.
The feature race, a $7,500 claimer for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles, attracted seven entrants. Eyes On My Heart, a gate-to-wire winner under similar conditions in her last start, could start as the favorite for trainer Vann Belvoir. Fly Away and Orange Sherbet, both two-time winners at the meeting, are the other leading contenders.
SARATOGA, N.Y. - Boys At Tosconova led a handful of trainer Rick Dutrow’s horses to breeze immediately after the renovation break at Saratoga on Tuesday, working five furlongs in 59.46 seconds over a “good” track with jockey Ramon Dominguez aboard. Boys At Tosconova, who galloped out six furlongs in 1:12.70, is being pointed for the Grade 1 Hopeful here on Sept. 6.
Among the other Dutrow runners to breeze were D’ Funnybone, who went a half-mile in 49.66 with Edgar Prado aboard, and Trickmeister, who breezed four furlongs in 48.40 under exercise rider Michelle Nevin.