MIAMI -- Sweet Repent, who was given a much-deserved vacation after capping off a five-race win streak with an easy victory in the Sunshine Millions Distaff on Jan. 30, will make her return here on Saturday in the $65,000 Nancy's Glitter Handicap.
Sweet Repent rose from the allowance ranks to the top of the local filly and mare division last winter, winning four stakes during her skein, including the Grade 3 Stage Door Betty Handicap in her 3-year-old finale here on Dec. 26.
Indiana Downs closed out its 2010 meet with a bang Wednesday evening, handling More than $2.6 million for the 13-race card. The Shelbyville, Ind., track had never handled more than $2.1 million on any given card. Daily handle for on the meet's live races averaged more than $1 million for the first time in the track's existence. The average daily handle from all sources was $1,017,355, up more than 3 percent from $983,848 in 2009.
The track, with its adjacent casino, charges no admission fee, so attendance figures are unknown.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. − In an effort to preserve field size, Hollywood Park may run four days a week during its autumn meeting later this year, track president Jack Liebau said Friday.
Hollywood Park has run a mix of four- and five-day weeks during the current summer meeting and primarily ran five days a week during last year's autumn meeting.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- After 57 years as a trainer, Sid Martin disbanded his stable last year, ending a long and illustrious career. In a career that began in 1943 as a hot walker at Hastings, Martin made it to the biggest stage in racing, finishing third as the trainer of Diablo in the 1975 Kentucky Derby.
Martin, 81, decided to call it quits due to physical problems.
"My knees won't take it any more," said Martin. "Just bending down to put bandages on became too painful."
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - When General Quarters won the 2009 Blue Grass Stakes and went on to the Kentucky Derby, the story line screamed, 'Write me!' And any scribe covering last year's Derby readily obliged. The horse had been claimed early in his 2-year-old campaign by Tom McCarthy, a retired school teacher with half a foot in the racing business. McCarthy owned the horse and trained him too -- the sort of one-horse stable that quickly fills a turf writer's notebook.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – A lack of rain in New York has brought Just as Well and Marsh Side to suburban Chicago. Both horses would have started in last weekend’s Man o’ War at Belmont had the ground at Belmont not been so drought-parched.
“We were just looking for some ground with some give in it,” said Neil Drysdale, Marsh Side’s trainer. “The hard ground’s not good for him.”
Business is up substantially midway through Monmouth Park’s 50 day, $50 million meet.
The leading indicators – AVERAGE attendance, ontrack handle, and total handle from all sources – show big increases through the first 24 days.
Monmouth cut back to a three-day schedule this year, running Friday through Sunday plus holiday cards on Memorial Day and Independence Day. The figures are matched against last year, excluding the Wednesday and Thursday cards that were eliminated from this year’s schedule.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. − Free Flying Soul has a collection of four minor stakes wins in her 15-race career. What’s missing is a graded stakes win.
The issue could be resolved in Saturday’s Grade 2, $150,000 A Gleam Handicap at Hollywood Park. The A Gleam will be Free Flying Soul’s second start of the meeting, and it comes at an ideal time. She won the minor Desert Stormer Handicap over six furlongs here June 12 by 1 1/2 lengths.
“She breezed in,” trainer Bruce Headley said. “She’s getting better with every race.”
AUBURN, Wash. – Squeallin By, unbeaten in three starts, headlines the feature race Saturday at Emerald Downs, a six-furlong, $15,000 claiming race for 3-year-old fillies that goes as the eighth of nine races. First post is 2 p.m.
Trained by Jim Penney, Squeallin By began her career in style May 9, leading wire to wire to win a $12,500 maiden and paying $36.60 as one of the longest prices on the board.
Although she is making her stakes debut and running against stakes winners Ultra Blend, Broadway Hennessey, and Izzy Rules, Dianne Do has the speed to make her the one to beat Saturday in the $75,000 California State Fair Sprint Handicap at Sacramento.
