All-sources handle at the Belmont Park spring/summer meet was $632,205,251, a 20.6 percent increase over the 2019 spring/summer meet figure of $524,051,324, according to figures released Wednesday by the New York Racing Association.
This summer’s handle was 63.5 percent higher than the 2020 meet figure of $386,654,955. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were only 25 days of racing in 2020.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Brad Cox, the Eclipse Award-winning trainer of 2020, began training horses when he was just 22. His son Blake also would like to get an early start.
Blake Cox, 20, is overseeing the seven horses Cox has stabled at Monmouth Park this week, including Haskell starter Mandaloun, who had a five-furlong workout here Saturday and came out it “in great shape,” Cox said. This is the colt’s second time shipping to New Jersey this summer. Last month, he won the Pegasus Stakes, his Haskell prep.
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Following Sea has displayed sub-45 second half-mile speed. His sire, Runhappy, won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. His dam was a sprinter, and her dam was a sprinter. Yet Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher seems confident that Following Sea is cut out to be a two-turn horse, and Pletcher sends Following Sea from New York to New Jersey to make his stakes and route debut Saturday in the $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Jackie’s Warrior, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner, is back at Saratoga and appears to be thriving, according to Scott Blasi, assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen.
On Wednesday, Jackie’s Warrior worked a half-mile in 49.93 seconds over the Oklahoma training track, getting his last quarter in 24.18 seconds and galloping out five furlongs in 1:03.65. He is preparing for a start in the Grade 2, $200,000 Amsterdam Stakes here on Aug. 1. That race is a stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $500,000 H. Allen Jerkens on Aug. 28.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When Gary Contessa returned to training after a brief retirement, he took a private job based at Delaware Park, away from the spotlight.
In buying, breeding, and training horses for Nick and Delora Beaver’s Bell Gable Stable, Contessa is hopeful of finding horses that could get him back to the bigger races. Perhaps he has found one in Maryland Brando, a good-looking, debut-winning 2-year-old at Delaware Park who will run in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Chad Brown will have two shots at winning a sixth straight Diana Stakes.
Brown on Wednesday entered both Lemista and Pocket Square in Saturday’s $500,000 Diana, the first Grade 1 of the Saratoga meet. The Diana, run at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares, drew a field of eight, including the Godolphin Racing duo of Althiqa and Summer Romance, the 1-2 finishers of the Grade 1 Just a Game at Belmont on June 5.
The 3-year-olds Rock Your World, winner of the Santa Anita Derby on April 3, and Flightline, the exciting winner of a maiden race at Santa Anita in late April, are scheduled to work at Del Mar this weekend for expected starts in coming weeks.
The two-week Los Alamitos summer meeting that ended July 5 showed growth in all-sources handle compared to a similar meeting in 2019.
Los Alamitos had an all-sources handle of $56.04 million, a figure that included bets on the seven-day race season as well as simulcasting in the days surrounding the meeting. The handle was 17 percent higher than the 2019 figure of $47.8 million.
In 2020, Los Alamitos held a summer meeting without customers because of the pandemic. The recent meeting did not have any restrictions.
Peter Miller won his fourth Del Mar summer meet training title last year with 28 wins in the 27-day season.
“I’ll sign up for that right now,” he said.
Miller is wasting no time showing his influence with runners in six of the 10 races on Friday’s opening card of the 31-day season, which runs through Sept. 6.
Mike Maker, well established among American trainers, truly goes nationwide this summer with his first division at the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins Friday and runs through Sept. 6.
Maker, who through Tuesday ranked sixth in the nation with $7.09 million in earnings this year, plans to have 20 to 25 runners at Del Mar, he said Wednesday. His presence gives the Del Mar meeting a much-needed boost of quality horses.
“We thought we’d give it a shot,” Maker said. “This year seemed like a good chance.”
