Del Mar will regularly add water to its Polytrack synthetic surface during the upcoming summer meeting in an effort to keep the course uniform from mornings to afternoons, the track's director of racing, Tom Robbins, said on Wednesday. The Del Mar meeting runs from July 16 to Sept. 3.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Communique took 10 starts to win a first-level allowance race following her maiden win, but she was able to move forward off that April 4 victory and close a brilliant month at Keeneland with a late-running victory before 11,673 fans in the Grade 3, $150,000 Bewitch Stakes on Thursday.
Jockey Garrett Gomez was able to save ground on the final turn with Communique ($10.80), then picked his way through traffic and ran down favored Tejida, who led for all but the final 50 yards of the 1 1/2-mile grass race for older fillies and mares.
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas Monterey Jazz should start as a strong favorite in the Grade 3, $300,000 Texas Mile at Lone Star Park on Saturday, but determining favorites for the three undercard stakes supporting that race will take some nose-to-the-grindstone effort.
The Irving Distaff, Grand Prairie Turf Challenge, and the Richland Hills Farm Stakes all drew full, competitive fields. Each race is worth $50,000, and serves as a prep for one of the six divisional stakes to be run on the Lone Star Million Day program here May 26.
Woodbine-based jockey David Clark has pleaded guilty to charges of impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm, according to a news release issued Thursday by the York Regional Police in Ontario.
Clark's appearance in a Newmarket, Ontario, courtroom on Wednesday stemmed from a May 16, 2006, accident in which a 34-year-old schoolteacher in another vehicle was fatally injured.
Clark had also faced charges of dangerous driving causing death and bodily harm, and driving with an excessive amount of alcohol in his blood. Those counts were dropped.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Signs posted at some of the entrances to Hastings read, "Yes, we are open." They are necessary because the track is undergoing renovations to install 600 slot machines and a new entertainment area and the site looks more like a construction zone than a race track. New walls seem to spring up out of nowhere on a daily basis, and it isn't easy navigating your way around the facility, even if you know it well.
The Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission has upheld revocation of the license of Jayne Vaders, the leading trainer at Philadelphia Park last year, because of multiple drug violations.
A spokesman for the commission, Chris Ryder, said that the board upheld a stewards' ruling from last May to revoke the license, citing seven medication violations over the past several years at the track. Ryder said that stewards are empowered to revoke a license under Pennsylvania rules if a trainer has two or more medications violations in one year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As if 12 stakes, all but one of them graded, weren't good enough, Churchill Downs racing officials are looking to beef up the Kentucky Oaks and Derby cards next weekend by increasing the purses for all allowance and maiden races on those two programs.
Churchill racing secretary Ben Huffman said the undercard is being "supercharged" by bumping purses for overnight races by 25 percent.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Though most of his success has come in two-turn races, Grasshopper will cut back to a one-turn mile when he ships here from Kentucky for Wednesday's Grade 3, $100,000 Westchester Handicap, the opening day feature at Belmont Park.
Grasshopper, trained by Neil Howard, first gained notoriety when he came within a half-length of Street Sense in last summer's 1 1/4-mile Travers at Saratoga. Thereafter, he finished second in the Super Derby at nine furlongs, won the Mineshaft at 1 1/16 miles, and was beaten a neck in the New Orleans Handicap at 1 1/8 miles.
Nine-time national champion owner Dr. Ed Allred, who also owns and operates Los Alamitos Race Course, has bought a 50 percent interest in the promising 2-year-old Foose for an undisclosed sum.
Trainer Paul Jones retains the other half of his homebred colt.
Foose raced to the fastest 300 yards ever by a first-time-starting juvenile at Los Alamitos last Saturday night, when he won his maiden in 15.19 seconds by 3 1/2 lengths. It was the third-fastest time ever by a juvenile at Los Alamitos, surpassed by champions Hawkish and Jess You And I.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Two of the more prominent contenders for the 134th Kentucky Oaks were out for serious work Wednesday morning at Churchill Downs as speculation continued about the prospective field.
Golden Doc A and Bsharpsonata, both with their scheduled Oaks jockeys aboard, breezed five furlongs over a fast track, finishing in 59.00 and 59.80 seconds, respectively.