Danny Pish, who is in a good position to win his 10th Retama Park training title when the meet wraps Saturday night, said he plans to send a division of horses to Oaklawn this winter. It will be the first time he has had a stable at the Hot Springs, Ark., track, which opens its 54-date meet Jan. 16.
I do have three or four Arkansas-breds and one Arkansas-based client, so it makes sense, Pish said. Well go over and try.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - They've run horse races over this same tract of ground for 134 years now, and only two jockeys have ever won as many as seven in one day at Churchill Downs.
Not Roscoe Goose or Mack Garner. Not Steve Brooks or Don Brumfield. Not Jim McKnight, Julio Espinoza, Shane Sellers, Calvin Borel, Robby Albarado, or Rafael Bejarano.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Utterly Cool, who had been looming as the horse to beat in Sunday's $250,000 Coronation Futurity, has undergone ankle surgery and is through for the season.
Sid Attard, who trains Utterly Cool for owner/breeder Mel Lawson's Jim Dandy Stable, had sent the colt out to breeze six furlongs in 1:15 on the main track here last Sunday in preparation for what was to be his first start on that surface in the Coronation, a 1 1/8-mile race for Canadian-bred 2-year-olds.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Tuesday racing is rare at Churchill Downs, but a jockey winning seven races on a card is even rarer.
Julien Leparoux became just the second jockey in Churchills fabled 134-year history to win seven in a day, doing so by winning with his first seven rides on a 10-race card staged on a day that normally is dark at Churchill but was open because of the Veterans Day holiday.
Pat Day, the Hall of Famer who retired in 2005, is the only other rider in Churchill history to have won seven races on a card, having done so from eight mounts on June 20, 1984.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Longtime trainer Art Lerille, who has a tragic history of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was back home Monday, two days after he was involved in an early-morning automobile collision with a Los Angeles County Sheriff's patrol car.
NEW ORLEANS - If the question was whether Fair Grounds could attract fields of decent size while opening at an earlier date than usual this year, the answer is clear: most definitely.
Fair Grounds's opening day card on Friday drew 111 entries (including also-eligibles) for 10 races when it was drawn on Sunday. Entries for Saturday's races were taken Monday, and that program got 109 horses for 10 races.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Cody Anderson enjoyed a rather sensational rookie campaign this year, capped by a stakes triple on Northlands Park's Fall Classic Day for Alberta-breds.
Now, Anderson will be trying to make his mark in the east, with Cool Ventura looking to use Thursday's $96,700 allowance prep for the Valedictory as his stepping-stone to that $125,000 closing-day feature at Woodbine on Dec. 7 and Cool Diablo slated to start in Saturday's $250,000 Coronation Futurity.
Colonial Downs in Virginia closed one of its nine in-state offtrack betting locations on Sunday and is no longer seeking buyers for the track, the president of the track said on Tuesday.
The offtrack betting location that was closed was one of two that Colonial operated in Chesapeake. Ian Stewart, president of the track, said on Tuesday that Colonial made the decision to shutter the location as part of a "general consolidation."
Ruffaroundtheedges, a 3-year-old filly who won her fifth race of the year Saturday night in the $50,000 New Braunfels at Retama Park, could make her next start at Fair Grounds. Trainer Alan Love said he's looking at the $60,000 Esplanade Stakes for fillies and mares at 5 1/2 furlongs on Dec. 20.
"Where she's running best is sprinting," said Love.
Awsugahnow and Vicarian, who invaded from Kentucky for a pair of Remington Park stakes last month, could both run next at Churchill Downs, said their trainer, Ian Wilkes. Awsugahnow closed with a powerful rush to win the $52,000 Ada by a neck, earning a Beyer Figure of 89.
"She ran good," said Wilkes. "I'll probably run her back at Churchill Downs. We'll probably give her a break after that, and may take her to Gulfstream."
