OCEANPORT, N.J. - The $1 million Haskell Invitational looks appealing to trainer Butch Reid, following Afleet Again's second-place finish last weekend in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park.
The Jim Dandy is in the mix. So is the West Virginia Derby. But the way Afleet Again has run and trained at Monmouth has Reid thinking the big gray colt would do best by staying home for the Grade 1 Haskell at 1 1/8 miles on Aug. 1.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Jimmy Jerkens said that Afleet Express came out of his victory in last Saturday's Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park in good order, and that he and the owners have not yet decided whether to run back in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth on Aug. 1 or the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 31.
Jerkens noted that Afleet Express showed Saturday he likes the Monmouth track.
"He did go there and win -- I guess that's something," Jerkens said. "Still, we're stabled in New York, too. That'll have some bearing on things.'"
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Todd Pletcher will celebrate his 43rd birthday on Saturday. It looks like he wants to give himself a Grade 1 victory as a present.
Pletcher on Wednesday entered three horses in Saturday's $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, a race that drew a field of only five. Pletcher will likely have the favorite in Devil May Care, who drew post 3, as well as the multiple stakes winner Ailalea (post 2) and the promising Katy Now (post 5). Biofuel and Connie and Michael complete the field.
After seven years away from racing to raise her family, jockey Rhonda Swan-Spieth returned to the saddle in Tuesday's 14th race aboard Wicked Country, who finished seventh after a quick beginning.
"It felt good," she said. "I'm refreshed."
Swan-Spieth's daughter, Kirsten Swan, and husband, four-time Thistledown riding champion Scott Spieth, are also both regulars at Thistledown.
Swan-Spieth, 38, a mother of five, is hopeful of returning to riding full-time this season. She said she would enjoy nothing more than racing against her daughter and husband.
The $15,000 President's Cup Stakes, which was canceled last Sunday after storms rolled through the area, has been rescheduled as the Friday feature.
The seven older horses from last weekend have all entered back and will contest the six furlongs under the lights in the eighth race. Reach One More is the expected to be a heavy favorite as he seeks an eighth career stakes win.
Blue-collar starter allowance types have the spotlight Friday evening at Evangeline Downs in an extremely competitive feature. Five of the eight fillies and mares slated to go five furlongs on the turf are coming off victories, and the public will likely have a difficult time determining a favorite.
He's Dangerous ($15.20) very quietly set a mile-and-a-sixteenth track record at Indiana Downs last Wednesday in a $15,000 claiming race originally carded for the turf. A wet course forced the race to the main track, and the record was at first overlooked.
"We had no idea that evening, somebody called the next morning and told me, the program had the turf time listed." said Dana Ollier, trainer of He's Dangerous. The 3-year-old gelding set the new track record of 1.42.18, eclipsing the old record of 1.42.60.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The owners of Uptowncharlybrown have filed an appeal with the New York State Racing and Wagering Board over the disqualification of their horse from fifth place in the June 5 Belmont Stakes for failing to carry the proper weight through the duration of the race.
AUBURN, Wash. - Summer came to the Pacific Northwest on Monday, leaving behind a spring dominated by gray skies, stormy weather, and, at Emerald Downs, rain-soaked racetracks.
Of the 157 races staged during the past five weeks, an even 100, or 63.7 percent, were contested on tracks labeled good, wet-fast, or, most often, sloppy.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Ian Black won with his first Queen's Plate starter when Mike Fox turned the trick in 2007. After being a spectator for the next two years, Black plans to be back with D's Wando in the 151st running of the $1 million Queen's Plate here one week from Sunday.