EDMONTON, Alberta Teagues Fight and Footprint rekindle a rivalry that flared this spring at Stampede Park and promises to continue throughout this meet in Saturdays $50,000 Spangled Jimmy.
Footprint scored first in the Teeworth Plate, establishing a course record in the one-mile test, and Teagues Fight rebounded a month later in the Herald Gold Plate, equalling the course record.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia For the first time this year Hastings has carded two stakes races on the same program. Leading off in the seventh is the $50,000 Supernaturel Handicap for 3-year-old fillies. The 1 1/16-mile race attracted six horses, including probable favorite Remarkable Miss.
The Troy Taylor-trained entry of Holy Nova and Lady Raj will be a very short price in the second stakes, the Vancouver Sun. The $50,000 Sun at 1 1/16 miles goes as the eighth race, with eight fillies and mares entered.
Sam Houston Race Park will host the 36th annual Willie Nelson's Family Picnic on Saturday. Among the artists set to perform during the daylong festival are Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Los Lonely Boys. Friday night, the feature is the $20,000 Silestone for Quarter Horses.
Defending champion Unbridled Belle heads a group of 17 older fillies and mares nominated to the $1 million Delaware Handicap on July 13 at Delaware Park.
Unbridled Belle, trained by Todd Pletcher, will be seeking to become the first horse to win back-to-back runnings of the Grade 2, 1 1/4-mile Delaware Handicap since Nastique in 1998 and 1999.
Weights for the race will be assigned Saturday and entries drawn Tuesday.
Reacting to the news that a horse trained by Steve Asmussen has tested positive for the Class 2 drug lidocaine in a race at Lone Star Park, Woodbine has begun putting Asmussen's entrants under its surveillance program.
Asmussen horses entered to race at Woodbine will be monitored beginning five hours before their post times by Woodbine security, who will restrict access to designated handlers. Jamie Martin, Woodbine's senior vice president of racing, said that the surveillance is a "house" rule.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The California Horse Racing Board began collecting blood samples for anabolic steroid testing on Wednesday. While the penalty phase of the new steroid policy will not take effect until later this summer at the earliest, trainers expressed concern on Wednesday that they could be sanctioned for claiming a horse who has recently been administered steroids.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Trainer Ken McPeek brought his family to Southern California for the week, turning the opportunity to run My Baby Baby in the Grade 1, $750,000 American Oaks into a Southern California vacation. The McPeeks have encamped at a beachside hotel in Santa Monica, which is about as far as My Baby Baby will be from the rail when she starts in the American Oaks on Saturday at Hollywood Park.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Not Bourbon, winner of the Queen's Plate here June 22, breezed five furlongs in 59.20 seconds on the training track Wednesday in preparation for Fort Erie's July 13 Prince of Wales stakes.
The $500,000 Prince of Wales, at 1 3/16 miles, follows the 1 1/4-mile Queen's Plate as the second leg of the triple crown for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.
Regular rider Jono Jones was aboard Not Bourbon for Wednesday's workout, which was the colt's first this season over the training track's dirt strip and the fastest of nine at the distance.
Trainer Larry Jones is beefing up security at his Delaware Park barn after a racehorse and his stable pony were found loose in the barn area on consecutive nights this week.
Delaware Park security and the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau are investigating the incidents and are focusing "internally in [Jones's] operation," according to John Mooney, Delaware Park's executive director of racing.
Jones said investigators are focusing on an employee he fired Sunday night.