Trainers Sean McCarthy and Tim Yakteen will take control of horses trained by Bob Baffert when the Hall of Fame trainer begins a 90-day suspension Monday for a 2021 medication violation found in Kentucky Derby first-place finisher Medina Spirit, Santa Anita officials said Saturday.
McCarthy will care for a majority of the stable, while Yakteen will have a select group of candidates that are being prepared for the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 6 and 7.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Keepmeinmind, a graded stakes winner at 2 who ran in seven consecutive graded stakes last year at 3 without a win, has been moved from Robertino Diodoro to trainer Todd Pletcher.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When Sonic Kitten rallied to win Friday’s first race, it clinched the Gulfstream Park winter meet title for trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. It was his 54th win of the meet, 10 more than perennial leading trainer Todd Pletcher, who had runners in just nine races over the weekend.
Pletcher had won the last 18 titles. (Jorge Navarro won the 2018-19 meet, but had the title stripped after being indicted on drug charges.)
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jockey Jose Ortiz was a man on the move Friday morning.
At 7:45 a.m., Ortiz was at the Palm Meadows training center where he guided the champion mare Letruska through a five-furlong move in 1:00.50. Shortly before 9:30, Ortiz was at Gulfstream Park – about a 45-minute drive from Palm Meadows – to work First Captain a half-mile in 48.84 seconds.
Letruska is pointing to the Grade 1 Apple Blossom on April 23 at Oaklawn Park. First Captain is scheduled to make his next start in the Grade 1, $300,000 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct next Saturday.
Mr Money Bags, who won the 10th stakes of his career in the $100,000 Spirit of Texas last weekend at Sam Houston Race Park, could stretch out around two turns for his next start, trainer Jaylan Clary said.
“We’re looking at a mile, possibly,” she said. “Nothing’s set in stone. We’re just kind of giving him a little down time. He’ll still be galloping. We just haven’t planned too far ahead.”
Plans are to be determined for Team Merchants, who was a six-length winner of the $100,000 Bill Thomas Memorial on the Sunland Park Derby undercard last Sunday. He set a quick pace before winning the 6 1/2-furlong race in hand in 1:14.12. Team Marchants earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 92.
“He’s a cool horse,” trainer Doug O’Neill said Tuesday. “I’m not really sure where he may end up, maybe on the undercard Derby week at Churchill Downs.”
Hannah Leahey, a 26-year-old apprentice jockey, who launched her career at Turf Paradise last month, will have her first mount at Santa Anita aboard Musical Gem in Sunday’s sixth race for $12,500 claimers.
Through Thursday, Leahey had won two races from nine mounts at Turf Paradise since March 9. In the last month, Leahey has been based at Turf Paradise during the week and at Santa Anita on weekends working as an exercise rider.
Dr. Schivel, third in the Group 1 Golden Shaheen Stakes for sprinters in Dubai on March 26, will be rested in coming weeks for an expected return to racing at the Del Mar summer meeting.
Trainer Mark Glatt said Friday that the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs on July 30 at Del Mar is a goal. The $400,000 Bing Crosby is the leading sprint race at the track’s summer meeting.
Dr. Schivel won the 2021 Bing Crosby and later was second by a nose in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar last November.
McLaren Vale, third in the Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes in February, will miss the Grade 1 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby on April 9, leaving the highly regarded Messier as trainer Tim Yakteen’s lone starter in the $750,000 race.
Yakteen said Friday that McLaren Vale remains in training, but did not mention a race goal.
“We’re in a holding pattern,” Yakteen said. “We’ll see how he works.”
Trainer Gary Cross knew the competition would be steep in the $300,000 Sunland Park Oaks last Sunday, but the 80-year-old also knew Cleopatras Charge had reason to move forward off her fifth-place finish in the local prep, the Island Fashion.
It turns out Cleopatras Charge did not disappoint her trainer – at odds of 79-1.
The daughter of Will Take Charge owned by breeder Samuel F. Henderson was making her second start for Cross following the Island Fashion at a mile in February.
