Jockey Simon Husbands is facing a suspension of one calendar year for what stewards termed "an unsatisfactory ride" aboard Bug's Boy, who finished second in the third race at Woodbine on Nov. 30.
"Husbands did not persevere with his mount throughout the race or demonstrate an effort to ensure the best and fastest race of which his mount was capable," read the stewards' ruling, which was released Saturday.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Jockey Tyler Baze will be out two to four weeks after suffering three cracked ribs and a hairline fracture of his right shoulder in a one-horse spill Friday at Hollywood Park.
Baze was riding the maiden filly Pink Diamond in the fourth race, a six-furlong turf race, when she ducked in yards past the wire and unseated him. He landed on the temporary railing, laid motionless for several minutes, then was transported by ambulance to nearby Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood for X-rays.
VINTON, La. - Big Drama took his game to a whole new level on Friday night, when he was part of a quick pace and then withstood a bid from West Side Bernie to win his fifth straight race in the Grade 3, $750,000 Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs. It was the graded stakes debut for Big Drama, who earlier this year swept the Florida Stallion Stakes series at his home track of Calder Race Course.
"He showed a lot of talent today," said David Fawkes, who trains Big Drama. "He showed a lot of run."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Mike Battaglia said years ago that nobody comes to the racetrack to listen to the announcer. Battaglia, who has called races and handled various other television and handicapping duties for more than 30 years at racetracks in Kentucky and beyond, flatly stated: "They come to bet on the races."
STICKNEY, Ill. - Chris Emigh is a successful, well-established, 38-year-old jockey with multiple riding titles and a family. A different sort of person might be lying low this time of year, spending some time with the kids, maybe even kicking back on a Caribbean beach. But no, there was Emigh on a bitter-cold Thursday and Friday in Chicago, riding for all he was worth over a frozen racetrack at Hawthorne.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - To the naked eye, it appeared Gooch's Dream won the featured seventh race on the turf Thursday at Hollywood Park. But the photo-finish camera showed Kbello the narrow winner, a result that lit up the phone lines at the track, caused Mike Machowsky, the trainer of Gooch's Dream, to file a formal complaint Friday, and left both the stewards and the track's photo-finish operator painstakingly explaining that the result was, indeed, correct.
NEW ORLEANS - Expected to be one of the strongest stables at the Fair Grounds this year, the Larry Jones barn has neared full strength with the Tuesday arrival of Old Fashioned. An impressive winner of last Saturday's Grade 2 Remsen at Aqueduct, Old Fashioned's trip south went smoothly, according to Jones.
"Everything's good," said Jones of Old Fashioned, who is undefeated in three starts. "He just got in and he hasn't been over the track yet."
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Coming off a record-setting meet at Churchill Downs, trainer Mike Maker hopes to continue his roll this winter in New York. Maker will have 25 to 30 horses stabled here this winter to run during Aqueduct's inner-track meet.
Maker, 39, won 31 races at Churchill Downs, a record for a fall meet. As a former assistant to D. Wayne Lukas, Maker spent one winter in New York running things for his boss.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Roger Attfield has been extremely busy the last couple of weeks at his off-season base of Payson Park, where he has 35 horses, with five more to come following the conclusion of the meeting here Sunday.
But Attfield will be back in town Friday for the 34th annual Sovereign Awards, where he will be front and center as a finalist in the trainer category and for his divisional candidates Not Bourbon and Callwood Dancer.
One Lucky Buck will have a new look Sunday when he seeks his second straight stakes win at Zia Park in Hobbs, N.M., in the $200,000 Distance Championship Handicap. He will add blinkers for the 1 1/8-mile race following a clear win in the $55,000 Veterans in his last start, Nov.o8.
"He wants to drift out on the turns a little bit, and in the stretch in his last race he drifted, so after that race we decided to train him in blinkers," said Bart Hone, who trains One Lucky Buck for Adam and Paul Lewis. "It's kept him from drifting. He's training very good."