Los Alamitos nears the halfway point of its two-week December meeting on Sunday, the third day of the seven-day season.
The final week of the season is scheduled from Thursday through Dec. 12, a span that includes three stakes races led by the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity at 1 1/16 miles on Dec. 11. There are two $100,000 races for statebred 2-year-olds at a mile – Friday’s Soviet Problem Stakes for fillies and Sunday’s King Glorious Stakes.
Dr. Schivel, second by a nose in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 6, has resumed training for a final start of the year in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.
There is a likelihood that Dr. Schivel will have a different jockey for the prestigious race, a fixture on the opening day of the track’s winter-spring meeting.
Tejano Twist, winner of the $200,000 Lively Shively on Nov. 27 at Churchill, will get a two-turn test in the $100,000 Gun Runner Stakes on Dec. 26 at Fair Grounds.
Tejano Twist, a 2-year-old Practical Joke gelding, had only a five-furlong Colonial Downs maiden win from his first six starts before romping to a Keeneland allowance-race victory in October and scoring a half-length win in the 6 1/2-furlong Lively Shively, a new race on the Churchill stakes schedule.
The Fair Grounds meet is only five racing days old and already trainer Al Stall has sent out three 2-year-old winners.
The filly Fannie and Freddie won a two-turn dirt maiden race on Nov. 26 by nearly four lengths, earning a career-best 74 Beyer Speed Figure and a stakes start Dec. 26 in the inaugural edition of the $100,000 Untapable.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Mike and Mickala Sisk of M and M Racing won the recent owner title at the fall meet at Churchill Downs and now have their sights set on Oaklawn. The North Texas couple have won the last four titles in Hot Springs.
“The Oaklawn meet is going to be longer, the money is better than it’s ever been, and the goal, obviously, is to win the owners title,” Mike Sisk said. “I like our chances. We’ve got about 20, 25 head at Oaklawn and as soon as that claiming button starts, we’ll be claiming like crazy!”
Sisk added how difficult it can be to claim at Oaklawn.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Arkansas Derby winner Super Stock could see action at the Oaklawn meet in the very near future, according to trainer Steve Asmussen.
“He’s at Oaklawn now and there’s a possibility of him running in the Poinsettia,” Asmussen said Tuesday.
The new, $150,000 race for 3-year-olds is Dec. 11. It will be run over 1 1/16 miles. Entries will be drawn Monday.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Dream Lith is set to take the Oaklawn Park road to the Kentucky Oaks. She established herself as a leading contender for the classic on Nov. 27 by winning the Grade 2 Golden Rod at Churchill Downs.
Dream Lith earned 10 qualifying points for the Kentucky Oaks and sits fourth on the leaderboard. She will soon arrive in Arkansas.
“Dream Lith went to Cypress Creek in Midway, Kentucky, for a short break and will head to Oaklawn by the first of January,” said Robertino Diodoro, who trains the filly for Cypress Creek Equine and Arnold Bennewith.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Joel Rosario, the leading jockey in North America this year in purse money won, will be out for at least three weeks after suffering a hairline fracture of a rib in a spill Thursday at Aqueduct.
An optimistic expectation is that Rosario could return to ride the opening-day card on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, according to his agent, Ron Anderson.
“I think it’s more three weeks than five or six weeks,” Anderson said. “We’ll just have to bite the bullet a little bit.”
Gary Palmisano Sr., a former trainer and longtime paddock judge at Fair Grounds, died Dec. 1 in New Orleans.
Palmisano, 74, was diagnosed nearly 20 years ago with prostate cancer to which he eventually succumbed.
Palmisano made a late career change to become the paddock judge at Fair Grounds after a successful run that began during the 1970s as a Louisiana-based trainer, mainly at defunct Jefferson Downs in Kenner, La., and at Fair Grounds.
