OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The coupled entry of Life Is Great and Hagler give owner Esteban Vargas a strong one-two punch in Thursday’s allowance/optional claiming feature for 2-year-olds, scheduled for seven furlongs at Aqueduct.
Life Is Great, a son of Tapiture trained by Bob Klesaris, is coming off a 6 3/4-length maiden win on Nov. 20, a race in which he ran seven furlongs in 1:24.64 and earned an 81 Beyer Speed Figure.
CYPRESS, Calif. – Until the final furlong of Saturday’s Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity, top California jockey Flavien Prat and trainer Bob Baffert appeared on their way to a four-win afternoon.
Prat was aboard the Baffert-trained 1-2 favorite Messier, who led briefly in the stretch of the $300,000 Los Alamitos Futurity at 1 1/16 miles. Slow Down Andy led in early stretch, and lost his advantage to Messier only to retake the lead en route to a one-length win.
Rombauer is working toward a comeback in early 2022 after a successful 3-year-old season that included a win in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in May and a third in the Belmont Stakes in June.
Owned by John and Diane Fradkin, Rombauer rejoined trainer Michael McCarthy’s stable earlier this fall. Saturday at Santa Anita, Rombauer worked a half-mile in 49.60 seconds, his third workout since resuming training.
McCarthy said Rombauer’s race plans will be not determined until the colt has a few workouts at five furlongs.
Country Grammer, unraced since a win in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita in May, has rejoined trainer Bob Baffert’s stable for a 2022 campaign.
Saturday at Santa Anita, Country Grammer worked a half-mile in 50.40 seconds, the colt’s first major exercise of his comeback.
A 4-year-old, Country Grammer was transferred from Baffert to Todd Pletcher in New York last June in the weeks after the Baffert-trained Medina Spirit tested positive for the banned raceday medication betamethasone in the Kentucky Derby.
Still basking in the glow of reaching a huge milestone, Gerald Bennett got started on his next target by simultaneously climbing to his familiar position atop the local trainer standings at Tampa Bay Downs last week.
Bennett, the leading trainer each of the last six years at Tampa in Oldsmar, Fla., saddled two winners last Wednesday to become just the 14th trainer in North American racing history to win 4,000 races. Since then, he has been overwhelmed by congratulatory calls, texts, shout-outs, handshakes, and backslaps.
CYPRESS, Calif. - Los Alamitos stewards Luis Jauregui, Kim Sawyer, and Richard Williams used drone technology in their decision to disqualify race winner Jamming Eddy from first to fifth in Sunday’s fourth race.
After a brief inquiry, Jamming Eddy was disqualified for crowding Barristan The Bold and Fratelli on the turn of a maiden race for $35,000 to $40,000 claimers at 5 1/2 furlongs. A drone camera used for coverage on TVG showed the incident more clearly than the head-on and conventional camera angles stewards have used for decades.
CYPRESS, Calif. - Sometime in the coming weeks, the broodmare Edwina E will be sent from Paul and Zillah Reddam’s Ocean Breeze Ranch in Bonsall, Calif., to Kentucky.
The purpose will be an attempt to repeat a developing story.
Edwina E will be bred to Nyquist in early 2022, Paul Reddam said. Edwina E’s current 2-year-old, the Nyquist colt Slow Down Andy, won his graded stakes debut in Saturday’s Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity.
An emotional Art Sherman saddled his final runner on Friday at Los Alamitos.
Sherman, 84, announced his retirement last month, and had his last starter in the seventh race when Chasing Alchemy finished seventh.
Sherman was honored in the winner’s circle with a brief retirement ceremony attended by track owner Ed Allred, other Los Alamitos executives, and Sherman’s friends and family.
Sherman is best known for winning the 2014 Kentucky Derby with California Chrome, who was honored as Horse of the Year that season and in 2016.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Green Light Go, beaten a head by Hopeful Treasure in the Grade 3 Fall Highweight on Nov. 28, worked a half-mile in 50.31 seconds Friday morning over the Belmont Park training track. What he is training toward has not yet been decided.
Green Light Go is not nominated to next Sunday’s $100,000 Gravesend. In addition to the race being just three weeks after the Fall Highweight, Jerkens noted that he didn’t want to run Green Light Go six furlongs again. He said he only ran the horse in the Fall Highweight because there was nothing else around.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Looking to build on past success on this circuit while also hoping to build a broader client base, Parx Racing-based trainer Tyler Servis has taken stalls in New York for the winter.
Servis was allotted seven stalls at Belmont Park, where all local runners are based during Aqueduct, since that track no longer has training. Servis currently has three horses at Belmont with Perfect Day, a first-out winner at Penn National on Wednesday, and a recently purchased unraced New York-bred 2-year-old on their way.
