GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Bella Diamante worked a bullet five-eighths in 58 seconds Friday morning at Lone Star Park in preparation for next Friday's Kentucky Oaks. She was to van to Churchill Downs on Saturday, said her trainer, Allen Milligan.
Mike Smith will have the mount on Bella Diamante, who in December was second to leading Oaks candidate Quiet Temper in the $500,000 Delta Princess at Delta Downs.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Three of the most dominant jockeys on the rugged Southern California circuit in the last two decades not only are riding at Churchill Downs through Kentucky Derby week but also will be here for varying lengths of a spring meet that runs through July 4.
Garrett Gomez, Corey Nakatani, and Alex Solis all will hold over as part of a Churchill jockey colony that already includes Kentucky regulars Robby Albarado, Calvin Borel, Shaun Bridgmohan, and Julien Leparoux.
Mother Nature is expected to shed a few tears, but hardly any horseplayers will follow suit as Sunday marks the final day of the six-month marathon that is Aqueduct.
Following a four-day break, Belmont Park opens its 59-day stint on Friday.
Sunday's nine-race card includes five races for New York-breds, four scheduled turf events, and a forecast that calls for rain. The nominal feature is a first-level allowance for males going seven furlongs.
Dual Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti has recently resumed galloping at Payson Park in south Florida and remains on target for the Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont Park on June 5, trainer Christophe Clement said. The Manhattan was one of four Grade 1 races Gio Ponti won in 2009.
Gio Ponti finished fourth in the Dubai World Cup, and after doing a couple of days in quarantine in New York, he shipped to Clement's stable in Payson Park.
Clement said Gio Ponti jogged for three weeks but has begun galloping the last few days. He will ship to Belmont next weekend.
Jockey John Velazquez will be at Monmouth Park for at least the first four days of that Jersey Shore track's meet, according to his agent, Angel Cordero Jr.
Velazquez is booked to ride at Monmouth on May 22-23 and again on May 29-30. He will be at Belmont on the weekdays proceeding those weekends as well as on May 31, Memorial Day, when he will ride Quality Road in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - It will take more than not having a Kentucky Derby mount for the first time since 1999 to wipe the smile off jockey Edgar Prado's face these days.
Highlighted by a five-win afternoon on Thursday at Aqueduct, Prado has won with 14 of his last 36 mounts from April 11 through Friday and is building some momentum heading into the start of Belmont Park's spring meet next Friday. Coming off a disappointing Gulfstream meet - where he won just 14 races from 155 mounts - Prado needed something positive to happen at Aqueduct.
Up until last year, Alberta started its racing season at Stampede Park a couple of weeks earlier than Hastings. When the license for the spring dates were given to a proposed track in Balzac, Stampede pulled the plug on its racing operation. The operators of the Balzac track are still trying to get financing to complete the stalled project.
Northlands Park, which is in Edmonton, took over some of the dates from Stampede, but doesn't open until the middle of May. Hastings benefits with Alberta-based trainers and jockeys getting warmed up in Vancouver before they head home.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The connections of Concert Music were pretty excited and optimistic about her future when she came out and romped in her first two starts last year.
She just toyed with her competition when she debuted in a $15,000 maiden claiming race last May 2. Proving her facile win was no fluke, Concert Music came right back and scored an easy six-length win over Quillo's Intention in a first-level optional $50,000 claimer two weeks later.
Blind Luck, the leading 3-year-old filly in California, worked six furlongs in 1:14.80 at Hollywood Park on Friday, her final workout before traveling to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Oaks, to be run next Friday.
The winner of the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes in February and Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes in April, Blind Luck worked alone, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said.
"She went slow the first part and finished up the last three-eighths in 35," Hollendorfer said. "We're very confident that we have her ready to run."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Princess Haya, who won the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes at Woodbine last September, has joined trainer Carl O'Callaghan's stable at Hollywood Park and will make her California debut in the $100,000 Wilshire Handicap next Saturday.
Owned by breeder Eileen Hartis, Princess Haya has not started since finishing third in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes at Woodbine last fall when trained by Michael Matz.