High Ridge Runner pulled a $62 upset in the $110,848 Ruidoso Thoroughbred Sale Futurity when he closed for a neck win over Batty Bull. Cimply Done, the favorite, finished fifth in the five-furlong race for 2-year-olds. Mark Villa rode High Ridge Runner for trainer Jimmie Claridge.
Also on the card, Going Wild ($4) won the $50,000 Free Spirits Handicap by a neck over Chief of Thestreet.
Jose Lezcano rode six winners at Monmouth Park, equaling the track record first set by Walter Blum in 1961 and equaled by Chris Antley, Julie Krone, and Joe Bravo since then. The performance included a victory aboard Coli Bear ($11) for trainer Bruce Levine in the $70,000 Blue Sparkler Stakes.
Bravo also picked up a stakes victory as Chitoz ($4.80) won the $60,000 Anderson Fowler for trainer Todd Pletcher.
Maidens Justice ($24) scored his maiden victory, overcoming trouble to win the $75,000 Lost in the Fog Stakes at Golden Gate Fields.
Maidens Justice broke last and trailed the field of seven down the backstretch of the five-furlong race for 2-year-olds. He moved up on the turn, but got bumped by odds-on A K Racer, who drifted in while on the lead. Maidens Justice bumped into Conclusive before straightening out and pulling clear in the stretch. He finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of Lightning Diablo. The winning time was 58.71 seconds.
Tin Cup Chalice proved to be more than a Finger Lakes phenom as he shipped downstate and led nearly gate to wire to take Sunday's $109,700 Mike Lee Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds at Belmont Park.
Recovering from a bump at the break, Tin Cup Chalice made the lead after running a quarter-mile in 22.99 seconds, then continued to lead through fractions of 46.52 and 1:11.39 and completed the seven furlongs under Pedro Rodriguez in 1:24.12. He returned $11 to win.
PLEASANTON, Calif. - There's a new look to the summer fair racing season this year, with a revised schedule and a return of Thoroughbred racing to the California State Fair in Sacramento.
The San Joaquin County Fair in Stockton had been the starting point for the fair season in recent years, but this year its dates have been moved to September, and the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton will start the fair season.
Thoroughbred racing returns to the California State Fair for the first time since 2004 after a three-year experiment with harness racing.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Gotta Have Her seemed poised for a promising winter campaign after she won the Harold Ramser Handicap at Santa Anita last October. She wound up sidelined for nearly six months after being diagnosed with pneumonia a month later.
After Gotta Have Her won a comeback race in an allowance race at a mile on turf June 4, trainer Jenine Sahadi reverted to her 2007 impressions of the 4-year-old filly.
"I really believe she's a nice horse," she said.
OCEANPORT, N.J. - Bruce Levine finished second in the Monmouth Park training standings the last three summers.
While there are still a lot of races to be run at this meet, Levine is well positioned to earn his first Monmouth title.
Levine was red hot from the start, and the barn shows no signs of cooling off. His latest victory came Sunday with Coli Bear in the $70,000 Blue Sparkler Stakes, a win that gave Levine a 27-13 lead over Eddie Broome in the standings heading into the new week.
Patrick Valenzuela crept closer to the 4,000-win threshold 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!"
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Not Bourbon ($11.30) held off the 9-5 favorite, Ginger Brew, in the final strides to capture the 149th running of the $1 million Queens Plate under Jono Jones at Woodbine on Sunday.
It was a long anticipated record-typing victory for Canadian Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield, who equaled Harry Giddings Jr. for the most Plate victories by a trainer with eight. Attfield, who last won the Plate in 1995 with Regal Discovery, did a masterful job in getting the speed-oriented Not Bourbon to stay the 1 1/4-mile distance.