ELMONT, N.Y. - Perhaps no one knows better than Jimmy Jerkens how difficult a task it will to beat Quality Road in Monday's Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.
As the former trainer of Quality Road, Jerkens has great admiration for the colt, who will enter the Met Mile off dominant victories in the Hal's Hope and Donn Handicap at Gulfstream this winter.
"It's almost impossible," Jerkens said. "He's a horse and a half."
WHO'S HOT
Freddie Lenclud and Miguel Mena
With leading rider Calvin Borel taking off all of his mounts last week with an eye infection and reigning Eclipse Award-winning jockey Julien Leparoux away until late June because of an injured back, Lenclud and Mena took advantage. Lenclud, an apprentice, won with 8 of 25 mounts, and Mena had the second-most productive week, going 6 for 24.
Francisco Torres also won the big prize of the week, winning the $100,000 Louisville Handicap aboard longshot Free Fighter.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Maggi Moss expressed her anger and frustration Thursday with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission because one of her horses, Trinity Run, has been
ordered scratched by the stewards on three recent occasions at Churchill Downs because of an incident involving a medication test on another horse.
Llano Teller, who is the nation's top-ranked 2-year-old Quarter Horse, will seek his second Grade 1 win of the Remington Park meet in Saturday night's $1 million Heritage Place Futurity.
Llano Teller rose to the top of the 2-year-old poll with his win in the Remington Park Futurity in April. He comes into the Heritage Place off a second-place finish in his trial May 7.
The 350-yard race is the richest of seven stakes on the card, worth a combined $1.9 million.
Jungle Wave began his last campaign with a flourish, winning his first two starts here and then going on to become a stakes winner in the seven-furlong Play the King on the turf course. Now, after a rather flat fourth-place finish in his first start this year, Jungle Wave will be looking to bounce back in Sunday's Grade 2, $150,000 Connaught Cup, a seven-furlong turf race.
Jungle Wave, who was claimed for $62,500 from his 2009 debut, also finished fourth last year in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile and third in the Grade 2 Nearctic over six furlongs of grass.
Barracks Road won't be ready for the June 13 Woodbine Oaks. But the Canadian-bred 3-year-old filly, trained by Mark Casse, served notice that she should be heard from down the line with an impressive maiden victory in a six-furlong turf race here Wednesday evening.
"Before I ran this filly last year I told Phil Hronec, Eugene's farm manager in Florida, that this was our next Sealy Hill," said Casse, who conditions the homebred Barracks Road for Eugene Melnyk.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Following Essence Hit Man's victory here at Woodbine in the Queenston Stakes, trainer Audre Cappuccitti had discounted the prospects of the gelding going on to the Queen's Plate. But Cappuccitti has reconsidered and will at least try the next stepping-stone on the road to the Queen's Plate, entering Essence Hit Man in Saturday's 1 1/16-mile Marine.
WHO'S HOT
3-Year-Olds
It's true no stopwatches were busted in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness, and scribes are still in mourning over Eskendereya and what might have been, but let's look at the bright sides, which are twofold:
The Belmont Stakes is shaping up as a terrific betting race, with a field of about nine or so, and whoever emerges victorious will share equal footing with Super Saver and Lookin At Lucky atop a wide-open division heading into the second half of the season.
ALTOONA, Iowa - Prairie Meadows has carded two $60,000, 1 1/16-mile stakes Saturday, the Jim Rasmussen Memorial for older horses and the Wild Rose for fillies and mares. Chicago-based Shadowbdancing is using the Rasmussen as a step along the way to the Grade 2 Cornhusker Handicap here on July 26.
"That's our main goal, to run in the Cornhusker," said trainer Terrel Gore.
After taking about five weeks off this winter, Shadowbdancing has made two starts this year. He won the Cryptoclearance at Hawthorne in April, then shipped to Fonner Park to win the