Commanding Ace can be a very tough horse to get past when he gets his head in front early, and he looks like the best speed in Friday’s featured seventh race at Northlands Park.
Along with Millwright, Commanding Ace is dropping into a 6 1/2-furlong $22,000 claiming race that drew six older horses. They both had a hard time keeping up with a tough group of horses in a $40,000 optional claiming sprint July 16.
Informed Decision answered the question that trainer Jonathan Sheppard wanted answered and won the $100,000 Windward at Presque Isle Downs on Tuesday evening. The 2009 Eclipse Award-winning mare led throughout the one-mile event and won going two turns for the first time in her career.
Category Seven keeps getting better, and before the year is out, she could see Grade 1 action. Trainer Kenneth Hargrave said the mare’s fall objective is the $400,000 First Lady at Keeneland on Oct. 9. But first, Category Seven could meet males at her home base of Louisiana Downs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Blame didn’t break any stopwatches, nor would people likely have even picked up their heads to watch if they hadn’t known the horse in the blue saddle towel with jockey Garrett Gomez aboard breezing immediately after the renovation break here Tuesday was the second choice for next week’s Grade 1 Whitney. But Blame’s easy half-mile work in 49.76 seconds had his trainer, Al Stall Jr., smiling from ear to ear as his star cooled out at the barn about an hour later.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Richard’s Kid is the defending champion of Del Mar’s biggest race, the $1 million Pacific Classic. After finishing third in the Hollywood Gold Cup earlier this month, he is scheduled to have one local prep for the 1 1/4-mile Pacific Classic. But whether that comes on Friday, in the Cougar II Handicap at 1 1/2 miles, or Saturday, in the San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles, is still to be determined.
AUBURN, Wash. – Get You, who threatened the six-furlong track record in his last start, headlines the feature race Thursday at Emerald Downs. A $15,000 claimer for older horses at six furlongs, it’s the sixth of seven races on a program that begins at 6 p.m. Pacific.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Turf Melody made little noise in his first and only start on the grass last fall at Keeneland, but trainer Graham Motion is confident that the 3-year-old will live up to his name when returning to the turf for Thursday’s $70,000 Quick Call Stakes at Saratoga.
Golden Gate Fields completed scheduled maintenance work on its Tapeta track surface Monday in preparation for the opening of its summer-fall meet on Aug. 25.
New fibers and wax were added to the surface beginning after Sunday’s workouts. The additions, made under the supervision of track superintendant Juan Meza and a team from Tapeta Footings, are designed to rejuvenate the synthetic surface, which was first installed in the summer of 2007.
Officials at River Downs have slashed purses in half for the Cradle and Bassinet stakes, the annual showcase events at the Cincinnati track.
The Sept. 6 Cradle will go from $200,000 to $100,000 and the Sept. 4 Bassinet from $100,000 to $50,000, according to the track’s general manager, Jack Hanessian.
“It is a regrettable move, but one we needed to make to protect the integrity of our daily purses for the local horsemen,” he said in a release.
DEL MAR, Calif. – It was at Del Mar last summer where Softly Singing gave the first indications that she could be the best filly of her crop in the barn of trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. But an ill-timed injury, and the emergence of Blind Luck, has made Softly Singing all but forgotten. Not at the barn, though.
“She’s a nice filly,” Dan Ward, Hollendorfer’s top local assistant, said Tuesday morning at Del Mar. “She needed time off for a knee. Down here, she’s really perked up. Her last two works have been terrific.”
