SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The return of Life Is Good to the races in the Grade 1, $500,000 H. Allen Jerkens headlines a terrific Travers Day undercard at Saratoga.
Had an injury not sidelined him in late winter, Life Is Good might have been among the choices for Saturday’s Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers. Instead, he enters the Jerkens, a seven-furlong race for 3-year-olds, off a near six-month layoff while having to face the multiple graded stakes winner Jackie’s Warrior in a field of six.
Lieutenant Dan’s win in Sunday’s Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap for turf sprinters at Del Mar has left owner and breeder Nick Alexander considering a $100,000 gamble this fall.
Lieutenant Dan won the first graded stakes of his career in the $101,500 Green Flash Handicap, leaving Alexander and trainer Steve Miyadi to consider the 5-year-old gelding as a prospect for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Nov. 6 at Del Mar. The Green Flash and BC Turf Sprint are run at five furlongs on turf.
C Z Rocket closed with a rush to finish a fine third in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs on July 31 at Del Mar. But the loss left trainer Peter Miller aggravated and convinced the track was not suited to the five-time stakes winner’s closing style.
C Z Rocket will have another chance for a Del Mar stakes win in Saturday’s Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs, if Miller chooses to run the 7-year-old gelding.
“We entered him,” Miller said Wednesday morning. “We’ll take a look and see how the field looks and how the track plays.”
Bell’s the One, among the top older female dirt sprinters in North America, will make her next start Sept. 18 at Churchill in the $300,000 Open Mind Stakes, trainer Neil Pessin said.
Pessin shipped Bell’s the One from Arlington to win the July 28 Honorable Miss at Saratoga. The mare came out of that start in good shape and was scheduled to have her first work since Aug. 26 at Arlington.
Earlier this week, jockey Francisco Calderon made the nine-hour drive from Ruidoso, N.M., to San Antonio to spend a few dark days at his Texas home. The journey gave the 27-year-old Calderon plenty of time to reflect on what he accomplished last Saturday and the assignment he faces on Labor Day.
Calderon is the regular rider of Jess Savin Candy, who will start favored in the $3 million All American Futurity on Sept. 6 with a chance at Quarter Horse racing history.
Code of Honor showed everything his connections might have hoped for off a seven-month layoff Aug. 21 in the Philip H. Iselin Stakes at Monmouth. He ran fast, he won easily, and he appears to have come out of his race in good shape.
“He seems fine,” trainer Shug McGaughey said Tuesday. Code of Honor shipped back to McGaughey’s barn at Saratoga following the Iselin. “We walked him a few days and we’ll take him back to the track tomorrow. He’ll bounce out of it quick.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Phil Serpe said a decision has yet to be made regarding whether Queen’s Plate winner Safe Conduct will return to Ontario for the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, the $400,000 Prince of Wales Stakes over 1 3/16 miles on dirt on Sept. 14 at Fort Erie.
Miss Alacrity, who likely would have been favored in Friday’s Seeking the Ante Stakes for New York-breds, will not run in the race, her trainer Wesley Ward said on Tuesday.
Miss Alacrity was one of six 2-year-old fillies entered in the $200,000 Seeking the Ante, scheduled as the second race on a card with six races restricted to New York-breds. She was coming into the race off an open-company win in the Colleen Stakes on the Monmouth Park turf as the favorite, and had won her first start against New York-bred maidens by 10 lengths, running in a race at Belmont at May.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Although she’s entered in Tuesday’s mile and 70-yard Cathryn Sophia Stakes at Parx Racing, Vequist was going to return from a six-month layoff in a seven-furlong allowance dash here Thursday.
But Vequist will not run in either race after coming up with another issue that has ended her abbreviated 3-year-old campaign and put her racing career in doubt.
“She had a minor setback coming out of her last work and will be off for rest of the year,” trainer Butch Reid confirmed Monday.
