DEL MAR, Calif. - Outfitted in everything from elegant hats to tattered cutoffs, fans began their annual pilgrimage to Del Mar for this track's 43-day summer season, which began on Wednesday. The sun was out, the 77-degree weather could not have been more ideal, and Del Mar tried to make everyone not here realize what they were missing by training a pan camera on the nearby beach more than an hour before the first race.
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DRF Past Performances
The purse from the June 28 Cleveland Gold Cup at Thistledown has not been paid out while the Ohio Racing Commission conducts an investigation into whether the 13-length winner, Marble Cliff, was eligible for the race, which is restricted to registered Ohio foals.
Brent Reitz, general manager of Thistledown in North Randall, Ohio, said Wednesday that he was instructed in a letter from the commission to withhold the entire purse, pending resolution of the investigation. The race was worth $100,000, with $60,000 due to the winner.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Artiste Royal, the winner of the Grade 1 Charles Whittingham Handicap at Hollywood Park on June 7, has been sidelined with a splint bone injury, trainer Neil Drysdale said on Wednesday.
The injury will prevent Artiste Royal from starting in the near future. Earlier this summer, he was a candidate for Sunday's $400,000 Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar or the $1 million Arlington Million on Aug. 9.
Saturday's pair of $50,000 five-furlong turf stakes for 2-year-olds at Louisiana Downs, the Princess and Minstrel, could be the start of something big. The races are the first in a progression of stakes at the meeting for aspiring grass performers, culminating in the $150,000 Happy Ticket for fillies and the $150,000 Sunday Silence on Super Derby Day, Sept. 20. The journey could extend beyond even that day given the recent addition of Breeders' Cup races for 2-year-olds on grass.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - El Sinaloense's win in the $55,075 Ladnesian Stakes last Sunday ranks as one of the best races ever run by a 2-year-old at Hastings. A B.C.-bred gelding owned and trained by Juan Olmos, El Sinaloense earned a 92 Beyer Speed Figure for his5 1/4-length win over Almost Time in the six-furlong Ladnesian. That is the best figure ever posted by a 2-year-old at Hastings.
The second-best number, 87, was recorded by Ultimate Force in 1997. Ultimate Force went on to become a Grade 3 winner.
HURON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - As opening day approached for Pinnacle Race Course last week, Jerry Campbell pulled into the parking lot of the new track in suburban Detroit's Huron Township and surveyed the project he had created from what less than a year ago was 320 acres of swampy fields. No worries for Campbell.
"I'm sleeping fine," he said. "I'm so tired, I'm sleeping fine."
DEL MAR, Calif. - An experiment that allowed the four account wagering providers in California to offer betting on all of the state's racetracks ended Wednesday when TVG declined to relinquish its exclusive rights to the Del Mar meeting, according to several racing officials.
"The so-called experiment won't be continuing," Del Mar executive vice president Craig Fravel said Wednesday morning.
Mike Battaglia, the announcer at Turfway Park, will begin calling races at Ellis Park on an interim basis beginning Wednesday, filling in for the late Luke Kruytbosch.
Kruytbosch, the announcer at Churchill Downs and Turf Paradise as well as Ellis Park, was found dead Monday in his Evansville, Ind., apartment. He had apparently had a fatal heart attack, according to the local coroner's office. Kruytbosch was 47.
Golden Gate Fields showed an increase in handle from out-of-state simulcast bettors at its 30-day spring meeting, but a slight decrease in all-sources handle from last year's meet, according to figures provided by the track. The spring meet at Golden Gate, in Albany, Calif., began on May 14 and ended June 22.
Out-of-state simulcast handle increased 9.7 percent and ontrack wagers on Golden Gate races increased about 5 percent. But there was a 10.5 percent decrease in betting on Golden Gate's race via account wagering and in Northern California.