WHO'S HOT
Gary Sciacca
Perhaps miffed about his omission from the last two editions of the New York Racing Association's media guide, Sciacca, a Brooklyn native who turned the big 5-0 in March, has celebrated with a 4-4-3 record from 24 starters at the spring meet, including three turf winners.
FINISHING HOT
Heading into the final week of the Keeneland meet, jockey Garrett Gomez held a four-win advantage over Julien Leparoux, with Robby Albarado and Kent Desormeaux tied for third with 11 wins each.
Gomez continued his hot-riding ways at the meet last week, winning nine races from 26 mounts to outpace Albarado and Leparoux, who won six races apiece.
WHO'S HOT
Favorites have won 36 of the 87 races at the meet, or 41 percent. Last year, they won at just under a 31-percent clip, one of the lowest rates in North America.
Trainer Brian Lynch and jockey Patrick Husbands teamed to go 2 for 2 during the week of April 16-18. They swept the late double last Sunday with two favorites, Platinum Exchange and Cambridge Blue.
WHO'S HOT
Martin Garcia got the final week of the Santa Anita meet off to a rousing start, booting home three winners. He has entrenched himself among the top 10 on the circuit, and with Garrett Gomez moving his tack to ride more back East, and stakes around the country liable to take the likes of Rafael Bejarano, Joel Rosario, and others away, Garcia may well take advantage at Hollywood. In other words, don't be surprised if he's a top-five rider in Inglewood.
There also were hat tricks Friday from both Martin Pedroza and Tyler Baze.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Excessive Passion returned from a layoff of nearly four months to pull a 17-1 upset in Wednesday's $75,000 Harry Henson Stakes on the opening day of the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting.
Sent off as the sixth choice, Excessive Passion closed from eighth in a field of 10 to win by a half-length over 20-1 pacesetter Locksley Hall. Smiling Tiger finished third, with Face and an Ace fifth, losing by 2 1/4 lengths.
Snowbound Superstar, who won 15 consecutive races from 2006 until last September and was widely considered one of the finest 870-yard horses in Quarter Horse history, was retired earlier this month.
Trainer Paul Jones said the decision to retire Snowbound Superstar was made for multiple reasons.
He s 7 years old, Jones said. He s been through two knee surgeries, and he s not the horse he used to be. Rather than see him go down the ranks, we decided to retire him. He s such a great horse. He s not going to be as competitive.
STICKNEY, Ill. - There is a lot of old, but plenty of new in the six Illinois-bred $100,000 stakes races carded for Saturday at Hawthorne.
The sextet of statebred-restricted dirt stakes bring out familiar names like Shrewd Operator, Stonehouse, and Nicks, but the best betting races in the sequence look like the pair of sprints for 3-year-olds, the Pretty Jenny for fillies and the Land of Lincoln for colts and geldings.
AUBURN, Wash. - This week's fan-poll question on the Emerald Downs website is, "Who will be the leading rider at EmD in 2010?" Believe it or not, there is more than one possible answer.
Ricky Frazier has all but owned Emerald's rider standings the past six years, winning the title each season except 2005, when he finished second behind Kevin Krigger, and 2008, when Seth Martinez staged a furious rally to edge him in the waning days of the meeting.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Fifteen Love drew ideal posts for two Saturday stakes at Lone Star Park, making the decision of running him in the Grade 3, $200,000 Texas Mile or the $50,000 Grand Prairie Turf Challenge a little more difficult for his connections.
"I'm okay on both races," trainer Jerenesto Torrez said after Fifteen Love drew post 4 of 8 in the Texas Mile, and 3 of 11 in the Turf Challenge. "Right now, I don't know what we're going to do. The good thing is that he doesn't have any problem with the grass or the dirt."