Santa Anita has increased overnight purses by approximately 10 percent for its upcoming autumn meeting, the third time in the last year the track has increased prize money.
Last November, the track raised purses for the 2020-21 winter-spring meeting. Earlier this month, Santa Anita announced a purse increase for the 2021-22 winter-spring meeting.
Idol, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap in March, isn’t running in Saturday’s Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar, but could return to racing this fall.
Idol has not raced since the Big Cap, but did have his first workout since early April last Saturday, going three furlongs in 38.60 seconds at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego County.
The clearest indication of Joe Bravo’s plans for the rest of the year did not come on the racetrack at Del Mar. It came when Bravo went to Los Angeles last week to secure housing near Santa Anita.
“I got lucky and found a great spot,” he said.
Bravo, who relocated from his longtime summer base in New Jersey to Southern California in June, was fifth in the jockey standings at the Del Mar meeting through Sunday. Bravo had 11 wins, putting him 15 behind leader Flavien Prat.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Grade 3 Marine Stakes runner-up Keep Grinding is the tepid 4-1 favorite for the 162nd running of Sunday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate at Woodbine, North America’s oldest annually run stakes.
Keep Grinding is owned by 17-year-old Joshua Attard and trained by his grandfather Tino. They picked post 8 during the two-tiered draw on Wednesday. Rafael Hernandez has the mount.
“He always tries,” Joshua Attard said. “He never gives up.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Miss Speedy lived up to her name last Sunday when she put up a 90 Beyer Speed Figure in her four-length Ontario-sired allowance score going 1 1/16 miles on the Tapeta. It was the highest Beyer earned by a 3-year-old filly at Woodbine this year.
The results of the $60,000 Aventura on Saturday at Gulfstream Park surely had some racing fans going back a few generations in time.
Perfect Silent Cat gave Sharon Boland her first stakes win in a training career that officially began in February 2020 when driving to a three-length score in the Aventura under Luca Panici. The name Boland might have rung a bell to anyone familiar with racing history, and sure enough, Sharon is the daughter of Bill Boland, who in 1950 won the Kentucky Derby aboard Middleground as a 16-year-old apprentice.
Trainer Steve Asmussen said early this week that the Grade 3, $400,000 Oklahoma Derby on Sept. 26 at Remington Park is the likely next stop for Super Stock, who drew clear late Sunday in winning the signature race of the 31-day Ellis meet, the $200,000 Ellis Park Derby.
The 1 1/8-mile Oklahoma Derby would be the sixth straight derby for Super Stock. Preceding his Ellis win, the Dialed In colt won the Arkansas Derby, ran 16th in the Kentucky Derby, then recorded back-to-back fourths in the Texas Derby and Iowa Derby. He earned a 90 Beyer in the Ellis Derby.
Eddie Kenneally and James Graham didn’t win any races Sunday at Ellis Park, and still they had a very good day.
Returning to their home circuit of Kentucky for the biggest day of the summer meet at Ellis in western Kentucky, both Irishmen received hero’s welcomes for winning Grade 1 races less than 24 hours earlier.
DEL MAR, Calif. – With Trevor Denman back in the fold, wouldn’t it be appropriate for the winner of the biggest race at the only track at which he calls to be moving, as Denman is wont to say, like an Express Train?
That will be the hope of trainer John Shirreffs, jockey Juan Hernandez, and owners Lee and Susan Searing on Saturday at Del Mar when their colt Express Train tries to get over the Grade 1 hump in the 31st edition of the $1 million Pacific Classic.
The cancellation of the Saturday night card at Charles Town in West Virginia was due to a decision by jockeys to protest inconsistencies in receiving payments from the track’s bookkeeper, according to officials for the track and the riders.
Jockeys told management that they would refuse to ride the card on Saturday night after being issued checks on Friday with a notification that the checks should be cashed at the casino owned and operated by the track’s parent company due to the possibility of insufficient funds in the track’s normal account, according to the officials.
