In four previous starts in stakes at Mountaineer Racetrack this season, Cryptolight had to settle for small pieces of the purse, finishing second three times and third in his other race locally.
In Tuesday night's $75,000 Fall Stakes, however, the 5-year-old Cryptolight broke a seven-race losing streak while running the fastest race of his 34-race career.
Two of the 54 horses in a quarantined barn at Hoosier Park have tested positive for strangles, although they show no signs of that respiratory ailment, according to results released Tuesday by the track.
As a result, Hoosier's general manager of racing, Jeff Smith, acting on the recommendations of the track's veterinarian and the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, has ordered all horses in the subject barn removed from track grounds.
Duke of Mischief, Fiddlers Afleet, Massone, and Payton d'Oro were among a number of horses traveling to Oklahoma City on Wednesday for Remington Park's richest program of stakes. The colts - Duke of Mischief, Fiddlers Afleet, and Massone - are on deck for the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sunday, while Payton d'Oro, the winner of the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan in May, will run on the undercard in the $200,000 Remington Park Oaks.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The opening FallStars Weekend at Keeneland will hit its peak Saturday when three Grade 1 races are among the five graded stakes run during what amounts to a key preview for the Nov. 6-7 Breeders' Cup.
Entries for the Saturday races were drawn Wednesday, and the top names on the card rank among the major players in the overall Breeders' Cup outlook, including Justenuffhumor, Forever Together, and Informed Decision.
Working backward, here are quick rundowns of those major events on the 10-race card Saturday, which starts at 1:05 p.m. Eastern:
ARCADIA, Calif. - It will take a win in Saturday's $350,000 Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita to keep Parading in California beyond this weekend.
Trainer Shug McGaughey has started Parading twice in California this year - a fifth in the Hollywood Gold Cup as the favorite and a fourth in the Pacific Classic - and does not intend to stick around for the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic here on Nov. 7 if the 6-year-old does not win on Saturday.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Spice Route, runner-up in last year's Canadian International, could be on his way back to that Grade 1, $2 million turf feature here Oct. 17 after breezing seven furlongs in 1:28 on Wednesday morning.
Spice Route, a 5-year-old gelding, had finished fifth over soft turf in the 1 1/4-mile Nijinsky here July 26 and emerged from the race with pulled muscles in his back. After spending three weeks on the farm, Spice Route returned to the racetrack and had his first breeze back on Sept. 9.
The Saratoga meet will expand by four days in 2010, going from 36 to 40 days, the New York Racing Association announced Wednesday following a meeting of its Board of Trustees. The 2010 meet will run from Friday, July 23, through Labor Day, Sept. 6.
"From a business perspective, eliminating five days at Belmont and increasing four days at Saratoga - two weekends and two weekdays - the net to NYRA's about $2 million,'' NYRA president Charles Hayward said Wednesday. "So financially, it's obviously a good thing at a time when we could use the money.''
The heavy rains that pummeled Belmont Park on Saturday afternoon forced management to move all five turf races scheduled for Sunday's card to the dirt, including three graded stakes, two that were to have awarded berths into Breeders' Cup races.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Large fields have been entered for the two graded stakes that help start the 17-day fall meet Friday at Keeneland Race Course, with 12 2-year-old fillies going in the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades and 10 sprinters in the Grade 3 Phoenix Stakes.
