The unheralded Peaceful Bliss dominated a strong field that included three past winners of the West Virginia Breeders Classic in Friday night's $50,000 Robert Hilton Memorial Stakes at Charles Town.
The seven-furlong Hilton is a local prep for West Virginia-bred horses pointing to the $500,000 Classic, the 1 1/8-mile co-feature on a $2 million program scheduled for Oct. 17.
One on One stalked the pace from fifth down the backstretch and moved to the lead around the final turn en route to a 1 3/4-length victory in the $50,000 J.W. Sifton at Assiniboia Downs on Friday night.
The 1 /8-mile J.W. Sifton, for Manitoba-bred 3-year-olds, was the second stakes win for One on One, who is trained by Carl Anderson and has been ridden in each of his nine career starts by Tim Gardiner. The gelding captured the six-furlong CTHS Sales last September.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Fateh Field, who won a first-level allowance race on turf at Belmont Park on Thursday, was disqualified from first and ordered unplaced in the order of finish by the New York stewards because he had been put on the veterinarian's list by the track vet at Presque Isle Downs where the horse had raced on Sept. 12.
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Jockey Shane Sellers will be out two to three weeks after injuring a disc in his back working a horse during morning training hours at Louisiana Downs on Friday, according to his agent, Anthony Martin.
Sellers was off his mounts on Friday, and was scheduled to ride Uno Mas in the Grade 2, $750,000 Super Derby here Saturday.
"He'll be out two to three weeks," Martin said Saturday. "He was breezing a horse yesterday and it jerked on him the wrong way. We probably won't see him the rest of the meet."
BOSSIER CITY, La. - Louisiana Downs, which had scheduled four turf stakes to support the Grade 2, $750,000 Super Derby on Saturday, has moved all of the program's grass races to the main track, according to the local board of stewards. There have been rains on and off all week, with the main track listed as muddy for morning workouts on Saturday.
POMONA, Calif. - Fairway Road exploited favorable conditions Friday at Fairplex Park, where her four-length victory in the $50,000 Bustles and Bows Stakes was the fourth win on the card for jockey Alonso Quinonez.
The seven-furlong stakes for 2-year-old fillies lost program favorite Unbridled Meeting; she scratched with a hoof injury. That left High Five Gal, a maiden, as the lone front-runner and was the main reason High Five Gal started as the even-money favorite.
Three winners from last year's Maryland Million Day card are among 12 horses pre-entered for next Saturday's featured $200,000 Classic at Laurel Park.
A total of 167 horses, including 19 cross-entered, were pre-entered Friday for the Sept. 26, 12-race program for the offspring of Maryland sires. The event has been officially renamed Jim McKay Maryland Million Day in honor of the Hall of Fame broadcaster who proposed the concept and served as its chairman until his death in June 2008.
AUBURN, Wash. - An ankle injury will prevent Longacres Mile champion Assessment from running in the 2009 Breeders' Cup and keep him sidelined until next spring, trainer Howard Belvoir said Friday.
Assessment chipped a bone in an ankle during a six-furlong workout on Sept. 4 and underwent surgery six days later. The procedure was performed at Emerald Downs' veterinary clinic by Dr. Robert Schneider, a specialist in equine orthopedic surgery at Washington State University.
MIAMI - Trainer Graham Motion has had his share of success shipping into Calder for stakes races this decade, having registered victories in the 2006 and 2007 Tropical Turf Handicap with Ballast as well as the 2003 My Charmer Handicap with New Economy. Each of those wins, though, came late in the season during the Tropical at Calder session.
So it came as a bit of a surprise when Motion, who is based primarily at Fair Hill in Maryland, nominated four horses for next Saturday's Festival Preview card including three fillies to the $75,000 Judy's Red Shoes.
Hold Me Back, winner of the Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park in the spring and most recently the runner-up behind Summer Bird in the Aug. 29 Travers Stakes, is easily the marquee name for the Turfway version of the Kentucky Cup next Saturday, Sept. 26, in Florence, Ky.
