ARCADIA, Calif. - There seems to be little quit in Golden Doc A, who will be favored in Saturday's Grade 1, $300,000 Santa Anita Oaks.
Last October at 2, after Golden Doc A won her first stakes in the Anoakia Stakes at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting, trainer Barry Abrams said she deserved a break to prepare for a 2008 campaign.
It was a good idea, until he ran it by Golden Doc A.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Despite fewer people at the track and a drop in ontrack handle, total all-sources handle on Saturday's 11-race Santa Anita Handicap program increased slightly compared to last year.
The ontrack attendance on a cool and drizzly day was 41,377, a decline of 3.8 percent from the 43,024 that attended the 2007 program. The ontrack handle of $4,880,864 was down 16.8 percent from the 2007 figure of $5,864,253.
Pyro won the Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 9 at Fair Grounds, in his 2008 debut, with a did-you-see-that, last-to-first stretch run but he did not scare everyone away from Saturdays $600,000 Louisiana Derby, the high point of the Fair Grounds meet.
The Louisiana Derby, one of six stakes on a 12-race card drawn Monday, got a field of nine, with top prospects Tale of Ekati and Majestic Warrior in from Florida to take on Pyro.
Florida-based Stevil, who has lost three entry-level allowance races since winning his debut last fall, was a surprise entrant from trainer Nick Zito.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Track announcer Larry Collmus may have summed it up best as Hey Byrn approached the wire well clear of a strong field of second-level allowance rivals in Sunday's third race at Gulfstream Park.
"This guy's for real!" Collmus exclaimed, as Hey Byrn put the finishing touches on his second straight impressive victory of the meet.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Six Florida shippers, two familiar faces, and one intriguing locally based horse make up the challengers expected to face the undefeated New York-bred Giant Moon in what is shaping up to be a 10-horse field for Saturday's Grade 3, $250,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.
The Gotham, contested at 1 1/16 miles over the inner track, is the local prep for the Grade 1, $750,000 Wood Memorial to be run at 1 1/8 miles over Aqueduct's main track on April 5. Both are stepping-stones to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 3.
The winner of the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes invariably runs well enough that he goes next in the Lane's End Stakes.
This year, however, is different. He is a she. Absolutely Cindy, the 3-year-old filly who defeated 10 colts and geldings in her 19-1 upset of the $100,000 Battaglia Memorial on Saturday at Turfway Park, could run next in the March 22 Bourbonette Stakes at Turfway, with the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes and possibly the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks to follow.
Fort Erie Racetrack, which will reopen its backstretch on March 24, again will offer a streamlined schedule of four stakes at its 2008 meeting, which begins May 3.
The $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds and the second leg of Canada's Triple Crown, is the showpiece of the meeting and will be run on July 13.
Bai and Bai ($5.80) sat just behind favored Somethinaboutlaura, pinning her on the rail down the stretch as the two engaged in a head-and-head duel over the final quarter-mile before Bai and Bai edged clear to win Saturday's Foster City Handicap at Bay Meadows by a length.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Monashee was named the 2007 horse of the year and champion older filly or mare in British Columbia at the annual awards banquet held at the Boulevard Casino in Coquitlam, B.C., on Friday evening.
A Kentucky-bred mare by Wolf Power, Monashee won five stakes races at Hastings in 2007, including an easy win in the Grade 3 Ballerina Breeders' Cup. Her win in the Ballerina was her 11th stakes victory in a row. Monashee's streak came to an end when she went unplaced in the Maple Leaf Stakes at Woodbine last November.