After racing year-round for decades, Mountaineer Racetrack is doing things a little differently in 2010. Dark for two months during the harshest part of winter when cancellations because of severe weather were commonplace, Mountaineer reopens Monday night with a 10-race card that drew at least nine runners in nine of the races.
Raise the Bridle finished first by a neck in the at Sunland Park on Saturday, but was disqualified for impeding his stablemate, Storming Saint, whose number was put up by the stewards. Raise the Bridle was placed second, and now both he and his stablemate are headed to the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby, said their trainer, Henry Dominguez.
Storming Saint ($5.60) races for Lathrop Hoffman. Raise the Bridle is owned by Double Eagle Ranch and Buena Suerte Equine, the New Mexico-based partnership that last year won the Kentucky Derby with Mine That Bird.
Tizaqueena made her graded stakes mark racing on turf during 2009, but this mare also gets over dirt - Fair Grounds dirt, at least - just fine. No turf Saturday in New Orleans, and no problem for Tizaqueena, who won the $59,400 Allen Lacombe Memorial Handicap by three-quarters of a length in her 2010 debut.
"Her first three races were on dirt," winning trainer Mike Stidham said. "We weren't too worried."
Vow to Wager gave trainer Dale Romans a second prospect for the Lane's End Stakes when the colt was awarded victory Saturday with the disqualification of Codoy in a highly eventful 28th running of the at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.
Codoy finished a length ahead of Vow to Wager in the Battaglia, a 1 1/16-mile Polytrack race, but was disqualified for impeding Vow to Wager at two separate junctures in the final quarter-mile. Vow to Wager, ridden by John McKee, returned $48.60 as the longest shot in a field of eight 3-year-olds.
Dont Blame the Cat made it two wins in a row at Laurel Park on Saturday, coming on with a late run to win the seven-furlong, $54,000 Miracle Wood by a length over Regal Warrior, with the pacesetting Cole T another half-length back in third.
While Cole T led the field through a quarter-mile in 23.43 seconds and the half in 46.56, jockey Erick Rodriquez kept Dont Blame the Cat off that pace but within striking distance.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Comedero gave his trainer, Michael Stidham, his second stakes win in less than a half-hour on Saturday, when he powered home by 4 1/2 lengths in the $60,000 Mountain Valley at Oaklawn Park. The win came on the heels of Tizaqueena's score at Fair Grounds in the $60,000 Allen Lacombe Memorial Handicap.
OLDSMAR, Fla. - Don't Forget Gil returned to the scene of her last win - last year's Florida Oaks - to make her 4-year-old debut a winning one. She rallied past a stubborn Choragus through the stretch and pulled away late to post a 2 1/2-length victory in the 26th running of the Wayward Lass Stakes for older fillies and mares at Tampa Bay Downs.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Aurora Lights has already proven to be a very good horse on artificial surfaces. She may be even better on dirt.
Aurora Lights, who captured the Grade 3 Selene over the artificial track at Woodbine at 3, added another Grade 3 victory to her resume by rallying to a 2 3/4-length victory over Matchless Orinda in Saturday's at Gulfstream Park.
Backtalk, one of the more accomplished 2-year-olds of 2009, won at two turns for the first time Friday night when he made his season debut in the $75,000 Sportsman's Paradise at Delta Downs. The one-mile race shared a card with the $75,000 Green Oaks, won by Sheer Beauty.
Last year, Backtalk ($3) won the Grade 2 Sanford at Saratoga and Grade 3 Bashford Manor at Churchill Downs. Friday's race was his first start since finishing eighth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland in October.
ARCADIA, Calif. - For the second time in three weeks, Santa Anita on Saturday was forced to cancel a key Saturday race card, one that included a prep for the Kentucky Derby, owing to a main track that again was unable to sufficiently drain.
Santa Anita was hit with approximately 1 1/2 inches of rain late Friday night into early Saturday morning, but successive downpours between 6:30 a.m. and 9:45 Pacific, plus a grim forecast for the next several hours, forced the track to call off the day's racing less than three hours before the scheduled first post of 12:30 p.m.
