HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - What's the best medicine for losing a potential Kentucky Derby prospect?
For trainer Helen Pitts, it was watching her Grade 1 winner Einstein turn in one of the best works of his career on Monday morning and then seeing her first-time starter M V P Grand win off the screen later in the afternoon. That helps take the sting out of having Face the Cat sold privately and moved from her barn to trainer Todd Pletcher five days earlier.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - Monba likes to ease into the day. He would rather sleep in than work, but in the afternoon, the effort has been there, with two wins and an unlucky fourth-place finish in the CashCall Futurity to complete his 2007 campaign. That has put Monba on the short list of top contenders for the Kentucky Derby.
Sunday, he will make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $350,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, but here at the Palm Beach Downs training center on Monday, he had his final work for that race, and looked like he would have rather been napping.
Turfway Park has carded a race for horses who "have not won a race on a synthetic surface," believed to be the first such restriction at any North American track since Turfway became the first track to use a synthetic surface, Polytrack, in September 2005.
Rick Leigh, racing secretary at the Florence, Ky., track, said he came up with the idea "just as a way to fill a race. I've never seen it written before. . . . We're just trying to get races to go, and this seemed like a good way to make one."
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Denis of Cork remained undefeated in three career starts Monday when he ran down pacesetter Sacred Journey in the stretch to win the Grade 3, $250,000 Southwest Stakes before a crowd of 29,018 at Oaklawn Park. Sierra Sunset finished 2 1/4 lengths back in second, with Sacred Journey and Liberty Bull another 3 1/4 lengths back dead-heating for third.
Bold Chieftain ($5.60) relaxed on the lead and set comfortable fractions en route to a wire-to-wire victory in the $68,850 Presidents' Day Mile.
Jockey Roberto Gonzalez had Bold Chieftain a length in front of Plug Me In after a 23.44 quarter-mile. He was in front of Plug Me In by two lengths through a 46.92 half-mile.
Favored McCann's Mojave began to move up into contention on the second turn and pulled within a head of Bold Chieftain in the stretch before Bold Chieftain eased away to win by 1 1/2 lengths in 1:35.56 for the mile.
Even trainer Jim Ryerson admitted Go Go Shoot caught a lucky break in last month's Jimmy Winkfield Stakes when the other speed horse in the race, Accredit, broke slowly.
In Monday's $78,600 Fred "Cappy" Capossela Stakes, Go Go Shoot wasn't lucky, he was just plain good in leading gate to wire under Chuck Lopez and beating Accredit by a neck. It was a length back to Laysh Laysh Laysh, who had to steady late while trying to rally along the inside under Mario Pino.
A gritty Bustin Stones made the successful transition from restricted stakes to open company Monday and scored the biggest victory of his career to remain undefeated.
Forging to the lead right out of the gate under Ramon Dominguez, Bustin Stones held off a late charge from Lord Snowdon in the stretch to win the Grade 2, $246,750 General George Handicap at Laurel Park by a head. It was 1 1/2 lengths back to a troubled-trip Premium Wine in third.
Eight stakes that received a purse boost of at least $100,000 and the return of the Greenwood Cup after a two-year absence helped push Philadelphia Park's stakes purses to a record $5.475 million for 2008.
The purse structure for 31 stakes, released Monday, represents a 27 percent increase from 2007.
The Grade 2 Fitz Dixon Cotillion got a $250,000 increase, making it worth $750,000. The 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies, positioned five weeks before this year's Breeders' Cup, will no longer be run as a handicap.
ARCADIA, Calif. - With the loss of 11 days of racing to wet conditions and subsequent drainage problems with its synthetic surface, Santa Anita suffered a 26 percent drop in business in the first half of the track's winter-spring meeting. The meeting began Dec. 26, 2007 and runs through April 20.
Four new turf stakes for 2-year-olds, including one designed as a prep for the Breeders' Cup, and a pair of listed races upgraded to Grade 3 status are among the most notable changes on the 2008 stakes schedule at Delaware Park.
The 32 stakes, worth a collective $5.3 million, will as usual be highlighted by the $1 million Delaware Handicap. The Grade 2 Delaware Handicap headlines Delaware's $2.5 million Festival of Racing, a weekend package of seven stakes on July 12-13.
