OZONE PARK, N.Y. - If Joey P. can regain his best form and win Saturday's $65,000 Gravesend Handicap at Aqueduct, he will become a millionaire. To call his beginnings humble would be an understatement.
Joey P. is a New Jersey-bred son of Close Up out of the mare Luckey Lipco. He is owned by his breeder, John Petrini, who was basically given the mare for free and received a free breeding right to the stallion Close Up in a somewhat unorthodox manner.
Race by race, War Echo is beginning to resemble the filly who was gearing up for the Fair Grounds Oaks this past spring. Back then, trainer Steve Asmussen was preparing to challenge Rachel Alexandra, who was trained at the time by Hal Wiggins. Now, both horses reside in the Asmussen barn, and, if War Echo continues to improve, Asmussen will be more focused on keeping them apart than bringing them together in 2010.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Many of the trainers expected to be major players in the run-up to the Santa Anita Derby - Bob Baffert, Eoin Harty, and Jerry Hollendorfer - have maidens entered in the final race on opening-day Saturday at Santa Anita, but there will be several others trying to crash their party, including Bob Hess Jr., who sends out the promising Imperial Pride in the 6 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-olds.
Imperial Pride, by Limehouse, worked five furlongs from the gate in 59.20 seconds Monday, the best time among 26 at the distance.
It took him six tries to capture so much as a maiden race. But since winning for the first time in August, it seems that The Usual Q.T. has forgotten how to lose.
With five straight victories to match those career-opening five losses, The Usual Q.T. will be a solid favorite to notch his sixth in a row when he goes postward Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Sir Beaufort Stakes on opening day at Santa Anita.
Trainer Jim Cassidy said he is not surprised to see The Usual Q.T. become a rising star among North American turf horses.
ARCADIA, Calif. - If there is strength in numbers, trainers like Bob Baffert, Eoin Harty, Jerry Hollendorfer, and John Sadler have been hitting the weight room. Led by the Baffert-trained Lookin at Lucky, the likely Eclipse Award winner as champion 2-year-old male, many of the West Coast's best prospects for next spring's Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks are concentrated in those barns.
The racing industry in Maryland vowed on Monday night to push back against the approval of a zoning measure that would allow the construction of a casino in Arundel Mills Mall near Laurel Park.
The approval by the Anne Arundel County Council caps a 10-month effort by the Cordish Cos. to get local go-aheads for the casino, which could be the largest in Maryland, housing 4,750 slot machines. The council voted 4 to 2 to issue a zoning permit for the casino on Monday night, over objections from local anti-gambling groups and Laurel's owners, who want a casino of their own.
MIAMI - Trainer Bill White was happy to be back in action on Monday for the first time in three weeks. Restrictions were imposed on all three of his barns at Calder - and the Calder backstretch was placed under quarantine - after a horse from his stable contracted and ultimately died from a case of equine herpesvirus.
But as glad as he was to be able to run horses again, White was even happier that the ordeal was finally over and that the case of the contagious disease turned out to be an isolated incident.
OLDSMAR, Fla. - Anthony Pecoraro has been racing at Tampa Bay Downs long enough to know that there is no substitute for fitness when horses race over this safe but sandy and somewhat tiring racing strip.
Having his runners prepared for the beginning of this meeting has paid off as Pecoraro has jumped out to the early lead in the trainers' race despite having just 10 horses on the grounds. With a training double last Saturday, Pecoraro has now won with 7 of his first 10 starters over the first five days of this meet through Saturday.
STICKNEY, Ill. - In the seventh race on Dec. 3 at Hawthorne, a horse named Run Frankie Run ran down the backstretch trailing a field of $10,000 maiden claimers. Just before the half-mile pole - no warning, blink of an eye - he tumbled to the ground.
Run Frankie Run did not break down: Moments later, he got to his feet and ran off. Nor did he clip heels with another horse, or shy away from some fearful object. Run Frankie Run simply tripped and fell, which basically does not happen to racehorses.
I Want Revenge, the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby who was scratched on the morning of that race because of an ankle injury, has resumed light training at a farm in Kentucky, co-owner David Lanzman said over the weekend.
Lanzman emphasized that I Want Revenge is only jogging and that he is far from a return to racetrack training or a race.
"We're taking things really slowly," Lanzman said. "Every day that he goes to the track I get an e-mail. He's just jogging."
