By Steve Andersen
ARCADIA, Calif. - After losing three weekday programs because of continued drainage problems with its synthetic main track, with the most recent the loss of Friday's card, Santa Anita officials are hoping to salvage racing on Saturday and Sunday.
Track officials made the decision to cancel Friday's program on Thursday morning as rain continued to pelt the racetrack. Earlier in the week, the Monday and Thursday programs were canceled because of wet conditions.
If you want to have a word with Tom McCarthy after General Quarters does his daily morning training, you can wait around the barn for a while, or you can walk. Walk alongside the 76-year-old McCarthy as he himself cools out General Quarters. The pace around and around barn 35 at Fair Grounds is quick, and sometimes there is a question of whether man is leading horse, or horse leading man.
"If I had a pair of roller skates he could just pull me around here," McCarthy said Wednesday morning, after General Quarters had been out to gallop 1 1/4 miles.
NEW ORLEANS - Clark Hanna, a 42-year-old native of McHenry, Ill., began working full time on the racetrack in 1985. He has been out on his own as a head trainer for 10 years now, and during that tenure has saddled 30 winners. Hanna has participated in seven graded stakes, but all with the same horse, Wise River, a turf miler who actually won the Grade 3 Carey Memorial two falls ago at Hawthorne. After 10 years, Hanna's stable earnings are approaching $1 million. The climb has been slow.
The temporary 2 percent increase in takeout at Los Alamitos approved by the California Horse Racing Board last week comes at a time when the Quarter Horse operation at the track is no longer profitable and several simulcast locations within California are threatening to discontinue the signal, according to testimony before the board.
Sam Houston Race Park will offer a maximum purse of $2 million if Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta were both to start in the track's Gallery Furniture Distaff that has a tentative date of March 27.
Sam Houston and race sponsor Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale have been pursuing a showdown between the two horses for several months, first setting a date of Dec. 5 for a $1.5 million race, then Jan. 30. Sam Houston has now moved the date again and left room for purse negotiations after learning in the last week that Zenyatta has come out of retirement and will race in 2010.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Perhaps the most anticipated of this year's three Sunshine Millions races at Gulfstream Park was to be the Turf and the expected rematch between Soldier's Dancer and Presious Passion, the first and second finishers, respectively, in the 2009 edition of the event. But a second meeting between the tortoise and the hare will not happen, at least not on Jan. 30, after the connections of Presious Passion decided to skip the Turf and await the Grade 2 Mac Diarmida on Feb. 27.
Wednesday's fourth race at Gulfstream Park was declared a no-contest after jockey Jose Lezcano was tossed from his mount Skate shortly after the start of the 1 1/16-mile turf race.
It was the second time a grass race has been called a no-contest by the stewards during the meet. The first incident occurred on opening day because of a delay in removing the starting gate from the course.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Eightyfiveinafifty, currently the fastest 3-year-old in the nation after winning a maiden sprint with a 105 Beyer Speed Figure on Jan. 9, activated trainer Gary Contessa's radar gun with a blazing workout on the inner track Wednesday.
There is some question whether the five-furlong move, with Nick Santagata up, was the fastest or second-fastest of nine at the distance. Eightyfiveinafifty was officially credited with a time of 59.41 seconds, while Castaneda, a 3-year-old maiden gelding also trained by Contessa, got the bullet of 58.66.
Only one favorite prevailed in Wednesday's pick-six sequence at Aqueduct that featured a two-day carryover of $111,911, but a win by prohibitive choice Rereadthefootnotes ($2.50) in the fifth leg enabled five winners to collect a payoff of $67,132.
Five of six paid $355.
The winning combination of 3-6-5-6-1-5 began with second choice Sue the Attorney ($6.20) and included double-digit mutuels by Afleet Alexandra ($11.40), La Vida Vino ($10.40), Royal Vessel ($18.60), and Laylaben ($15.60).
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - There were virtually no surprises when Saturday's $100,000 Holy Bull was drawn on Wednesday with nine horses entered to go a mile in the first major test for 3-year-olds to be decided at Gulfstream Park this winter.
Picking a favorite will be difficult amongst a field that includes Grade 1 winner Homeboykris, the multiple Grade 1-placed Aikenite, the once-beaten Jackson Bend, Breeders' Cup Juvenile pacesetter Piscitelli, and the well traveled and steadily improving Winslow Homer.