ALTOONA, Iowa - Storm Mesa extended her winning streak to four in a row as she led every step of the way to win the Grade 3, $250,000 Iowa Oaks on Friday night at Prairie Meadows.
Storm Mesa went to her knees at the start but quickly recovered and shot to the front. After shaking of Rasierra at the quarter pole, she dug in and won by a length over a fast-closing Sky Mom. She paid $4 to win.
Fort Erie will refund all verifiable wagers placed on its eighth race on June 17, after the tracks television monitors erroneously listed a horse as scratched several minutes before post time. The horse, Golden Quill, 2-1 at the time the error occurred, went on to win the race and pay $11.10. In that same time period, the exacta payoff jumped from a predicted $80 to $132.10.
A Fort Erie press release attributed the incident to human error that was confined to our television broadcast only.
Hollywood Park has committed to operating through the summer of 2009, and probably the entire year, the track's president, Jack Liebau, told the California Horse Racing Board on Friday during its monthly meeting in Pleasanton, Calif.
"We expect to be allocated our 2009 historic dates," Liebau said after the meeting. "We have committed that we will run the spring-summer meeting, no question, and the fall meeting, if we don't give six months notice to the contrary."
MIAMI - Jockey Ariel Smith knew he was going on a three-day vacation, courtesy of the track stewards, beginning Friday when he reported for work on Thursday morning. And his agent, Kevin Meyocks, gave him a little pep talk just to remind him of the situation.
"Kevin said I better get it together to make up for the lost days," said Smith - who then went out and followed Meyocks's orders by winning four races on Thursday's card.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Kamal Sheena is a general surgeon who went on sabbatical to write a book back in 2000. He ended up training racehorses, and is in the midst of a productive meet at Lone Star Park. Sheena has a four-horse stable led by Gold Wonder, the winner of a high-class allowance in his most recent start who will run next in one of two upcoming turf stakes at Lone Star.
Sheena, 71, said he has just finished writing his book, which he described as a book about medicine that is also an autobiography. He began training horses in 2000, but is not new to racing.
FORT ERIE, Ontario - The drop in revenue at border tracks such as Fort Erie and Windsor got some attention last week in the 80-page report released by the Ontario government's industry review panel.
The report, which assessed the province's horse racing industry, cited the falling U.S. dollar and increased competition due to the proliferation of alternative gambling facilities in the region as reasons for the declines.
AUBURN, Wash. - Margo's Gift and Gallon sit atop the 3-year-old division at Emerald Downs, and trainer Blaine Wright understands that it won't be easy to knock them off. Consequently, Wright has decided two take two shots at the divisional leaders in Sunday's $50,000 Tacoma Handicap at a mile.
Wright will send out both Easy Going Cecil and Javon Carries On in the Tacoma.
"I'll have one on the lead and one coming from off the pace," said the trainer. "That should give me a chance no matter how the race unfolds."
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Grade 2 King Edward was on tap here Saturday and the Grade 3 Dominion Day is coming up Tuesday, but the race of the long weekend should be Monday's My Dear Stakes.
The $150,000 My Dear, a five-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies, has attracted invaders from the barns of Wesley Ward and Todd Pletcher plus a three-pack of fillies from trainer Steve Asmussen's local shed row
Ward's contestant is My Sweet Natalie, who defeated males when she debuted in a two-furlong dash here April 20.
ELMONT, N.Y. - After a restful three weeks following his last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown is about to resume serious training in preparation for the second half of his 3-year-old season, trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. said Friday.
Big Brown has done little more than jog since the Belmont, but Dutrow said the horse was likely to begin regular gallops over the weekend with a possible workout as early as Tuesday. Big Brown is being pointed to the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on Aug. 3.
Mike Burgess won his first stakes race as a trainer last weekend at Louisiana Downs with Love to Tell, but she was far from his first stakes winner. Burgess rode Quarter Horses for 12 years, and during that time won his fair share of stakes, among his mounts such class runners as Strawfly Special and Gamblin on Sin.
"She's the first stakes winner I haven't sat on," said Burgess.