Higher purses, fueled by 2,000 slot machines and added bonus money from the Indiana Breeders Development Fund for Indiana-bred horses, has made Hoosier Park one of the more visible venues in the Midwest. The track begins its 16th season Friday evening with a 63-program meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses.
New York trainer Linda Rice returns to her roots Friday night when she will send out Canadian Ballet in the $100,000 Jennie Wade Handicap at Penn National Race Course.
The Jennie Wade, scheduled for five furlongs on the turf, goes as race 3 on a nine-race card that includes a pair of $75,000 supporting stakes, the Red Carpet and the Femme Fatale. Friday’s program, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, is a prelude to a three-stakes package on Saturday night, highlighted by the 38th running of the $200,000 Pennsylvania Governor’s Cup.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Purrfect Bluff has been perfectly consistent since trainer Patricia Farro claimed her for $32,000 in late May.
A 4-year-old, Purrfect Bluff has run second in all three races since the barn change. The consistency also runs through her Beyer Speed Figures, tightly banded from 77 to 75 for the three starts.
Purrfect Bluff takes her fourth straight crack at a first-level allowance in the $80,000 feature on the 12-race Friday card at Monmouth Park that kicks off Haskell weekend.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There is a certain cachet that one usually associates with a Kentucky Derby winner. For Super Saver, that seemingly lasted about two weeks.
Following his 2 1/2-length victory in the Derby, Super Saver wilted in the final three furlongs of the Preakness, finishing eighth, 11 3/4 lengths behind Lookin At Lucky, who had finished sixth in the Derby. Then, Super Saver went into hiding, skipping the Belmont Stakes to prepare for the second half of the year.
Friday means happy hour at Arlington Park, where fans start their summer weekends by kicking back with a late post at the Arlington Heights, Ill., track.
Countless hours have been invested in getting a 4-year-old named Kopitar back to the races, so it remains to be seen whether it will be a happy one at Arlington this particular Friday for trainer Rusty Arnold and his staff. The culmination of those tireless efforts will come in the featured eighth race, a $44,200 second-level allowance on turf that marks the first race in more than a year and a half for Kopitar.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Friday’s seventh race at Woodbine, a competitive $32,000 claimer, contains several classy droppers who are a tricky read, including Monty’s Best, who sticks out like a sore thumb in the seven-furlong sprint.
Monty’s Best showed promise two years ago during the fall of his 2-year-old campaign, when he wound up second in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. After getting the following winter off, he came out loaded for bear in the spring and early summer of 2009, winning a first- and second-level allowance in consecutive starts.
Love Ridge has spent most of her career running for a claiming tag, but her recent Beyer Speed Figures and early speed hint she may be capable of becoming a stakes winner when she drops from racing against older horses in open company to fellow 3-year-old Pennsylvania-bred fillies in Friday’s $75,000 Roanoke Stakes at Philadelphia Park.
The six-furlong Roanoke drew a field of six and goes as race 8 on a nine-race twilight card that begins at 4 p.m. Eastern.
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.