AUBURN, Wash. – Emancipated has been around the block a few times during his three-plus seasons on the racetrack, winning 6 of 32 starts, with 7 seconds and 10 thirds. That experience could serve him well Friday against four rivals in the featured seventh race at Emerald Downs, a first-level allowance with a $25,000 optional claiming price.
There are just enough seven-figure futurities at Los Alamitos in the final months of the year to keep the Balgo Racing Team stars from facing each other.
After Hot Hitter gave the stable its second major futurity win of 2010 in last Saturday’s $428,000 Governor’s Cup Futurity, Balgo owner Jose Gonzalez said both Hot Hitter and West Coast Hawk, the winner of the Kindergarten Futurity in May, are bound for the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association Futurity trials on Sept. 11. The $450,000 final is on Oct. 2.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – A future star could emerge out of the third race at Hastings on Friday night. The maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds going 3 1/2 furlongs is loaded with horses that have shown a lot of potential in the mornings. Their connections will find out if the promise they have shown in their works will be fulfilled when they run in an actual race.
None of That. trained by Jim Ellickson, certainly has the pedigree to be a good one, and he figures to be one of the favorites in the nine-horse field that will go as race 3 on the eight-race card.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Get Serious will bid for a Monmouth Park turf stakes hat trick in the $200,000 Red Bank on Labor Day weekend.
It would be quite a feat, if the 6-year-old New York-bred Get Serious could win a trio of Grade 3 stakes in one meet.
He put himself in position to pull it off with a neck win over Violon Sacre last Sunday in the Grade 3 Oceanport, the main event on the Haskell Day undercard.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Ian Howard went through a quiet period after winning with three of his first six starters at the meeting.
But Howard’s fortunes appear to be taking a turn for a better after he sent out Mitasunke to win first crack out at 60-1 here Monday, had a couple of live horses set to go Thursday, and had Bogue Chitto slated to make his seasonal bow in Friday’s $91,100 Play the King prep.
Bogue Chitto was a very pleasant surprise for the Howard stable in his last campaign, which started when he won his maiden with a $30,000 claiming price in May 2009.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Charlie Assimakopoulos is the private trainer for his family’s Yasou Stable Trust, perennially one of the most successful outfits at Suffolk Downs.
Assimakopoulos will be leaving home base Friday with the unbeaten Shoppers Return. They will hit the road for a second-level optional $40,000 claimer for fillies and mares, the $82,000 feature at Monmouth Park.
A 4-year-old, Shoppers Return did not debut until June 19 at Suffolk, where she rallied to score a two-length victory.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Quality Road, the top-ranked older horse in the country, drew post 3 when a field of six was entered on Wednesday morning in the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney Handicap on Saturday at Saratoga.
Quality Road most recently captured the Metropolitan Mile at Belmont Park on Memorial Day. He will carry top weight of 126 pounds, conceding from 5 to 13 pounds to his rivals. He was installed as the 2-5 favorite on the morning line set by Eric Donovan of the New York Racing Association.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Owner Mike Repole is doing his best to expunge the nightmare that was his 2009 Saratoga meet.
A year after going 0 for 36 at Saratoga, Repole has won four races from 14 starters through the first 10 days of this meet, putting him tied atop the owner standings with Gary and Mary West.
Awesome Gem worked a half-mile in 48.60 seconds at Del Mar on Tuesday, his first workout since a win in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup on July 10. Awesome Gem is being pointed for the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 28, a race in which the 7-year-old gelding was second in 2007, then seventh in both 2008 and 2009.
“He was into the bit and really worked well,” trainer Craig Dollase said of the workout.
Dollase gave Awesome Gem a few quiet weeks off training in late July in an attempt to be better prepared for the Pacific Classic.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The morning-line maker at Arlington Park, Joe Kristufek, does not hesitate to assign defined favoritism to a particular horse when such a move is merited. And the fact that Kristufek made a 7-2 morning-line favorite says all one needs to know about featured race 8 on Thursday at Arlington: This entry-level turf-sprint allowance race is wide open.