EDMONTON, Alberta One start does not a champion make, but trainer Joan Petrowski appears that she has another good one.
Curls and Pearls made her career debut a winning one last Sunday in the very first 2-year-old race of the season, beating the highly regarded Robo Willie by a length. It was not so much the victory but how Curls and Pearls won that had the backstretch community buzzing.
SASKATOON, Saskatchewan A week after the best older horses on the grounds competed in the first stakes events of the meet, the spotlight turns to the 3-year-olds in Fridays Prairie Meats Handicap for fillies and Saturdays Earlys Farm and Garden Handicap for colts and geldings. Each race carries a $7,500 purse, is contested over six furlongs, and appears to be a wide-open affair.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The cell phone bill is huge and he does not care one bit. Being the leading rider at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park this year has given Rafael Bejarano financial freedom, if not peace of mind.
Every day, before the races begin or during his 90-minute commute home to Pasadena, Bejarano grabs his cell phone and calls south, way south, to his family in Arequipa, Peru. He cannot see his mother, Elva, his father, Hugo, or his two sisters - they have been unable to gain tourist visas - but he can still talk to them daily.
AUBURN, Wash. - Enumclaw Girl did everything asked of her in Sunday's one-mile Irish Day Handicap for 3-year-old fillies at Emerald Downs, and she did it in style.
It would be stretching the truth, however, to say that she proved she can win around two turns in a fairly run race against quality competition.
MIAMI - Calder's Summit of Speed has become one of the premier racing days on the national calendar. The question this year is whether the ongoing conflict between local horsemen and track owner Churchill Downs Inc., and the purse cuts that have resulted from that stalemate, will put a damper on this year's edition of the event, to be decided July 12.
Wrenice has long been one of the Southwest's best dirt sprinters, but Saturday in an allowance sprint at Lone Star Park she opened up a new world of options when she won on turf for the first time. Now, trainer Randy Mayfield is plotting a campaign to get her to the $200,000 Turf Amazon Handicap for fillies and mares at five furlongs on turf at Philadelphia Park on Sept. 27.
"How we do it, we don't know yet," said Mayfield, who trains Wrenice, a seven-time stakes winner of more than $400,000, for Stewart Hamblen. "We're working on it."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Jerry Hollendorfer's stopwatch failed him when his star older horse Heatseeker worked at Hollywood Park on Sunday morning. Considering what Hollendorfer saw, it was not a major concern.
Hollendorfer timed Heatseeker's workout in 59.47 seconds. The official time was 57.80 seconds, the fastest of 59 works at the distance. The times may have differed, but one thing is certain: Heatseeker is ripe for his third major stakes win of 2008 in Saturday's $750,000 Hollywood Gold Cup.
ELMONT, N.Y. - After watching two favorites in out-of-town stakes disappoint, trainer Christophe Clement had his spirits get a boost Saturday as Mauralakana outfinished a stubborn Dynaforce to win the Grade 2, $250,000 New York Stakes by a neck at Belmont Park.
Dynaforce, making her seasonal and North American debut and first for trainer Bill Mott, held second by a neck over the late-running Hostess. Tejida, the pacesetter, finished fourth followed by Archstone.
Patrick Valenzuela crept closer to the 4,000-win level when he booted home five winners on Sunday's card at SunRay Park in Farmington, N.M. He also had two seconds and a fourth from his eight mounts.
"Not a bad day at all," Valenzuela said Sunday evening as he was leaving for Durango, Colo., to visit one of his daughters. "Five wins, two seconds, and a fourth, wow!"
Valenzuela was under the radar on Saturday, finishing third with his lone mount in his first trip to SunRay Park. But he was a crowd favorite on Sunday when he went 3 for 3 early.
Sent straight to the lead by jockey Jeremy Rose, Sweet Hope stayed in front throughout Monday's $60,650 Beautiful Day Stakes at Delaware Park, winning by three lengths. Puskita, who had chased the front-runner the whole way, was a clear second, 5 1/4 lengths ahead of third-place My Heavenly Sign.
Sweet Hope, a 3-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Lemon Drop Kid, was making her first start for trainer Larry Jones and her third start in the United States after beginning her racing career with 1 victory in 6 starts in England.
