ELMONT, N.Y. - Thanks in large part to cooperation from Mother Nature, business has been brisk at Belmont Park through the first half of the spring/summer meet.
Through last Sunday's 33rd card of the meet, total handle on Belmont races was $379,598,071, down 4 percent from last year's total of $395,24,768 on June 13, which was the 34th day of the meet. The daily average handle is $11,502,972, down 1.1 percent from last year's daily average of $11,627,199.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Management at Hastings is trying to make the best of a bad situation by starting the races at 10 a.m. Pacific this Sunday. The reason for the early post time is that the B.C. Lions, the local Canadian Football League team, is playing an exhibition game at a temporary facility located on the same site as Hastings.
Streak of Sixes, a stakes winner who suffered the first defeat of her four-race career last out, will try to get back in the win column in the $254,353 Mountain Top Futurity at Ruidoso Downs.
The 350-yard race is for 2-year-olds Quarter Horses bred in New Mexico.
Streak of Sixes won the first three races of her career, capped by the Grade 1 New Mexico Spring Futurity for statebreds at Sunland Park in April. She returned to action June 4, and finished third by a half-length in her trial for the Mountain Top.
More to the Story, who has spent most of her career racing in New York, will meet a couple of Arapahoe Park specialists when she makes her first start in Colorado in the $30,000 Molly Brown.
The field for the six-furlong race for fillies and mares includes Vannacide, who is 12 for 30 at Arapahoe, and Illusive Crystals, who is 5 for 6 in Colorado.
Reach One More should again rule a heavy favorite when he faces a field of six older horses in the $15,000 President's Cup Stakes at Lincoln Race Course.
Reach One More is a perfect 4 for 4 over this track and easily dispatched many of the same opponents in his last start here, the Big Red Mile on May 31. He once again will be joined by a pair of Chuck Turco-trained stablemates, From the Ashes and Pats High Life. The trio will race as separate wagering interests.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Officials with the Oak Tree Racing Association hope to finalize a home for their fall meeting by the end of his month and may have a resolution as early as Tuesday when the California Horse Racing Board convenes a highly anticipated meeting at Hollywood Park.
Jasper's Valentine will try to defend her title in the $50,000 Wild Rose Handicap at Northlands Park on Sunday. The six-furlong sprint drew a small but competitive field of five fillies and mares.
Jasper's Valentine, trained by Jim Meyaard, should be full of confidence following her 10-length front-running win over Jules J in a $40,000 optional race June 2. Jasper's Valentine has led from start to finish in all five of her wins, but could be vulnerable with plenty of other speed in the field.
SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Mac Robertson and Gary Scherer train five of the six entrants in Sunday's $50,000 Princess Elaine at Canterbury Park. The Princess Elaine, a 1 1/16-mile stakes for Minnesota-bred fillies and mares, tops a card that also includes the $35,000 Shot of Gold Stakes, a sprint for 3-year-olds and up.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Earl Barnett plans to have his Ontario-sired stakes mares out in full force this weekend.
On Saturday, Barnett had Anne's Purse entered in the $100,000 Zadracarta, an open overnight stakes for fillies and mares at seven furlongs.
On Sunday, You Will Love Me will be one of five fillies and mares in the Hill 'n' Dale, an open stakes that also is worth $100,000.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In all but the most elite barns filled with stakes runners, a horse of the quality of Strike Impact, a 13-time winner with earnings of more than $339,000, might be referred to as "the big horse."
Longtime Churchill Downs trainer Pat Dupuy calls him something else.
"He's the only horse," he quipped.
But if a trainer is going to have a one-horse stable, Strike Impact is the type to have. A $25,000 claim last summer by owner Chet Miller, the horse has risen under Dupuy to become a top-level optional claiming performer.