OCEANPORT, N.J. – The inside and the outside posts hold the keys to the $100,000 Incredible Revenge Stakes for fillies and mares, the Sunday feature at Monmouth Park.
Dubai Majesty is down on the rail for the 5 1/2-furlong turf race, a surface switch from dirt after her rallying third in the Grade 1 Princess Rooney Handicap at Calder.
West Ocean has post 9, the final slot, in her quest for a fourth straight stakes victory.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
The annual fair at the Pacific National Exhibition is just about here and depending on your outlook the next few weeks will either be an exciting time or a horror show. The fair shares the same site as Hastings and for most horsemen it is the latter, as their usual routine is interrupted and many times the noise coming from the fair is intrusive and can cause horses to spook.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher has dominated the juvenile maiden races here this summer. Sunday, he hopes to start getting a piece of the stakes action as well.
Position Limit, a 6 3/4-length debut winner at Belmont a month ago, heads a field of 10 juvenile fillies entered in Sunday’s Grade 2, $150,000 Adirondack Stakes at Saratoga.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mike Keogh and owner/breeder Gustav Schickedanz already have had their downs and ups on the Canadian triple crown trail this season, with Artic Fern being sidelined just before the Queen’s Plate and Mobil Unit coming up big with a second-place finish in the Prince of Wales.
On Sunday, Keogh and Schickedanz will be looking for a happy ending when Silent Wisper takes on the boys in the $500,000 Breeders’, the 1 1/2-mile turf race that is the finale of the series for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.
FORT ERIE, Ontario – Small stables, often overlooked, can make or break the overall backstretch operation.
They have to fight for a stall or two at times and their horses are usually in the claiming category. But they are willing to enter, and that makes them essential players when it comes to filling a racing card.
Luthia [Lucy] Shirley operates such a stable at Fort Erie, and has been working with horses since beginning as a Woodbine hot walker in the 1970s.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Impossible Time will be the prohibitive favorite in Sunday’s $125,000 Victoriana Stakes, and justifiably so, since she’s been facing much tougher company than she will be in 1 1/16-mile turf route for Ontario-sired females at Woodbine.
The decision to increase the purse of the Arapahoe Park Classic from $30,000 to $50,000 for Sunday’s running has helped the track lure one of the best bred horses to ever race in Colorado. Schramsberg, a son of Storm Cat and champion Serena’s Song, is set to make his stakes debut against nine others in the mile and an eighth race. He was a private purchase from the Robert and Beverly Lewis Trust this spring, and ships to Arapahoe off a first-level allowance win at Prairie Meadows.