ARCADIA, Calif. - When they've managed to run races at Santa Anita this winter, jockey David Flores has been the man to follow in stakes.
Make that the old man to follow.
Flores, who turned 40 on Tuesday, has won seven stakes at Santa Anita since the meeting began on Dec. 26. He is tied for most stakes wins with Garrett Gomez, the nation's leader in that category in 2007.
The stakes schedule for Stampede Park will remain unchanged this year, with 14 stakes offering total purses of $800,000 at the Calgary, Alberta, oval.
The $125,000 Alberta Derby, a 1o1/16-mile stakes for 3-year-olds, remains the richest race of the meeting and will be run on June 14.
The Penny Ridge, a 1 1/16-mile handicap for 3-year-old fillies, will be the closing-day feature on June 15.
The other 12 stakes at the 50-day meeting that begins March 21 are handicaps carrying $50,000 purses.
Steve Asmussen, who was both North America's leading trainer in races won and an Eclipse Award finalist for the third time in the past four seasons last year, will have a division at Woodbine for the first time in 2008.
Steve Lym, Woodbine's racing secretary and director of racing, said Asmussen has been granted 30 stalls.
"I'm excited as can be," said Asmussen from the Fair Grounds on Tuesday. "I hope we'll be bringing the right kind of horses to get in there and win a few races."
Beulah Park canceled racing for the third time in as many racing days Tuesday after heavy thunderstorms came through the Columbus, Ohio, area Tuesday morning, dropping up to three inches of rain. Beulah had also canceled its last four races Saturday as the temperature rose and the track began to thaw, and lost its full card on Monday as the temperature remained unseasonably warm and the track continued to thaw and became uneven. Beulah was dark on Sunday.
NEW ORLEANS - Like any prudent horseman, Neil Howard prefers not to compare his own horses. Somewhere in his craggy noggin, no doubt, Howard has formed concrete ideas about how one stakes horse stacks up against another. That doesn't mean he is going to trumpet them to the world.
Beads were being thrown all over New Orleans on Tuesday, but no one came close to drawing a bead on Cloudburst in the Mardi Gras Stakes.
Cloudburst burst straight to the lead in the Mardi Gras, and, defying this turf course's reputation for swallowing early-speed horses, led all the way in an impressive 2 1/2-length victory. She ran her record to 2 for 2 on the turf, having won a maiden race here on Jan. 7 in similarly impressive front-running fashion.
"She did it easy today," said winning rider Julien Leparoux.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Santa Anita officials took entries on Tuesday for a hoped-for return to racing on Friday, but Ron Charles, Santa Anita's president, cautioned that while he hoped renovation of the beleaguered main track would be completed by Friday, he was willing to wait an extra day if necessary.
"We're certainly going to try to race on Friday," Charles said Tuesday afternoon, "but everyone agrees that the most important thing is to get it right. It's critical to take the time to have the surface consistent all the way around with the polymer and the fiber."
NEW ORLEANS - After working together in their last two breezes, Curlin and Pyro went their separate ways early Tuesday morning. As most of New Orleans got in a final hour or two of rest before the Mardi Gras celebration began, both Curlin and Pyro turned in spirited, but separate, drills at Fair Grounds.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Silver Lord will be running in a handicap on Saturday. The question is, which one? Silver Lord was entered Monday in the Grade 3, $150,000 Mineshaft at Fair Grounds, where in his last start he won the $100,000 Louisiana Handicap with a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 103. But his connections plan to also enter him Thursday in the $100,000 Essex Handicap, which will be run at his home base of Oaklawn Park.
Golden Gate Fields's 62-day meeting that ended Sunday averaged $4,148,199 in all-sources handle daily. The meeting, the first using a synthetic Tapeta surface, started on Nov. 7.
All-sources handle, which includes betting of all kinds on Golden Gate races as well as by Golden Gate customers on incoming simulcasts, totaled $257,188,329. That was a 9.4 percent increase over corresponding 62 dates in 2006-07, when races were run at both Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows.
