The four winning pick six tickets at Belmont Park on Wednesday each were worth $590,566. The day began with a four-day carryover of $1,019,102 and an additional $2,420,192 was bet into the pool.
There were two winning favorites in the first five legs of the wager - Winthrop House ($5.80) in the first race in the sequence and Tempest Strom ($6.10) in the third - but also several more difficult selections - Stayawaystella ($31.40), The Shaughraun ($19), and Mesa Girl ($11.40).
LEXINGTON, Ky. - If Mambo in Seattle is to prove best Saturday as the favorite in the meet-closing feature at Keeneland, the Grade 3 Fayette Stakes, he will do so against a group with considerably more success than he has had over Polytrack.
Among the opposition in the $150,000 Fayette is Dominican, winner of the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at the 2007 spring meet; Jade's Revenge, winner of the 2007 Ben Ali and 2008 Fort Harrod in his only two starts over the Keeneland Poly; Minister's Joy, the 2007 Ben Ali runner-up; and Stream Cat, the 2007 Fayette runner-up behind Go Between.
Churchill Downs Inc. will begin offering a multi-track Super High Five wager between two of its tracks when the companys flagship track opens its 26-day fall meet Sunday in Louisville, Ky.
Called the Z-5, the wager will alternate between Churchill and Calder every day, beginning with the third race at Churchill, moving to the sixth race at Calder, and finishing with the last race at Churchill. Any Super High Five carryover applies to the next race, or the next day, whenever no tickets are sold using the correct combination of the first five finishers.
OKLAHOMA CITY - Jockey Justin Shepherd left Remington Park on Tuesday headed for Santa Anita, where he will ride Sing Baby Sing in Saturday's $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint. It will be the first mount in the championship series for the 22-year-old rider, who traveled to Keeneland and upset the Grade 3 Phoenix with the Remington-based horse on Oct. 4. The race was the synthetic surface debut for Sing Baby Sing, who was 26-1.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Mark Frostad and the Sam-Son Farm contingent will be at Santa Anita on Saturday to cheer on Grand Adventure, their entrant in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf.
But Frostad and Sam-Son also will be keeping the home fires burning with Windward Islands here at Woodbine in Saturday's Grade 2, $250,000 Sky Classic.
Windward Islands, a Kentucky-bred 4-year-old gelding, will be making just his second start of the season in the Sky Classic, a 1 3/8-mile turf race.
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.