Most teenagers can't wait to get out of high school. Lyndie Wade, on the other hand, is eager to get back to class.
Wade, a 17-year-old apprentice jockey, said Tuesday that he has stopped riding and will head back to high school in hopes of earning his diploma in a couple years.
His last mount came Saturday when he rode Really Rob to a seventh-place finish in the 10th race at Hawthorne Race Course.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Carla Gaines could not finish the handwritten letter from a heartbroken fan who had fallen in love with the best filly Gaines has trained.
The letter started, "I'm sure Nashoba's Key was rooting for Zenyatta from heaven the other day . . . ."
Gaines choked up. "Oh my god, I just started crying, I couldn't see through the tears to read . . . I still haven't read the whole letter yet. Every time I start reading it, I cry."
A portion of the canceled Sam Houston Race Park meet will likely be run at Retama Park after the San Antonio track and horsemen agreed to a plan Monday night that would extend the current Retama meet through the end of February, said Tommy Azopardi, executive director of the Texas Horsemen's Partnership.
The arrangement calls for 43 of the 65 lost Sam Houston dates to be run at Retama, while additional missed dates could be added next spring to the meet at Lone Star Park. The plan must now be approved by the Texas Racing Commission.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Cawaja Beach, one of the top 2-year-old fillies on the grounds this year with four wins in as many starts, will not see action again this season.
"It's very disappointing," said trainer Scott Fairlie, who also is a co-owner and co-breeder of Cawaja Beach. "She just came up with a little bit of filling in a tendon. That was very heart-wrenching, that was.
"She's going to be fine, but we'll give her the rest of the year off."
The Tropical at Calder meet, which traditionally marks the opening of the winter racing season in south Florida, begins Thursday with the first of 51 programs to be offered through Jan. 2, 2009. The Tropical meet comes on the heels of the Calder meeting, which opened April 21 and ended Sunday.
Sam Houston Race Park in Houston has canceled its upcoming 65-date Thoroughbred meet because of damages Hurricane Ike inflicted on the track when it made landfall in nearby Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 12. A plan to add 43 of the lost dates to the current meet at Retama Park near San Antonio was passed by the Texas Thoroughbred Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association in a 5-3 conference call vote on Monday. The meet at Retama would continue through February. The plan will now need approval from the Texas Racing Commission.
Jockey Salvador Perez, who was thrown when his mount fell past the wire in a Quarter Horse race at Lone Star Park last Thursday night, is paralyzed from the chest down, according to friends who visited him over the weekend at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.
Perez, 30, was scheduled to undergo surgery on Monday, said Jack Palmer, his valet the last two years. The goal is to correct some damage done to his spine, according to Bill Pettit, the stall superintendent at Lone Star.
"He can move his arms some," said Pettit. "He's in remarkably good spirits."
Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La., closed out its 85-date meet on Saturday with a 2.5 percent increase in average daily handle on its races from all sources. Officials reported gains in handle both ontrack and offtrack compared with the corresponding 91-date meet in 2007.
Beulah Park canceled its Tuesday live racing card but planned to resume racing on Wednesday with drastically reduced purses, the general manager of the track said on Monday.
The Tuesday cancellation was the third card to be called off since Beulah opened on May 14. Track officials have canceled the cards because of an ongoing dispute with horsemen over simulcast approvals.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Jerry Carroll said he would not have played the pick six last Friday at Keeneland if he had not noticed Thursday evening that 4 of 6 was good enough on that day's pick six.
"I had it twice Thursday," for $1,270 each, said Carroll. "So I decided I'd put it all back in on Friday."
It was another fortuitous decision for someone long known for his Midas touch. Carroll was the only winner the following day in a pick six that returned $237,019.60.